The campaign for the 1st phase of Elections in India ended today. It includes 4 Lok Sabha seats and the associated Assembly seats in the Southern part of the state of Odisha going to the polls on 11th of this month.
What's so special about these 4 seats -Barhampur, Aska, Koraput and Nawarangpur ? Once upon a time these tribal dominated constituencies used to be the fortress of the Congress party. Even in the 1977 post Emergency JP plus Biju Patnaik wave and 1989 V P Singh wave, Congress still managed to hold on to these 4 Lok Sabha seats by comfortable margins.
R Jagannath Rao was the MP of Barhampur from Congress for multiple time. Even if he was too old and weak to campaign, he still managed to win. So also his party mates Rama Chandra Rath (Aska), Giridhari Gomango (Koraput) and Khagapati Pradhani (Nawarangpur).
It had hardly anything to do with the popularity of these local leaders. It was common for the voters of these seats to say in the local Southern Odisha accent - KAANGRESS KU HATHA CHINHA RE VOTE DABARA EKKA (we will only vote for Congress in its Hand symbol). Though the party would lose from the rest of Odisha, the blind followers of Indira Gandhi stood solidly behind her and her son who followed.
Aska and Barhampur were the first to escape the Congress monopoly, followed by Koraput and Nawarangpur. This time in Nawarangpur the Grand Old Party has a fighting chance. What used to be a Congress Bastion which elected grassroot popular local leaders like Habibullah Khan is now slowly getting out of the grip of Congress party.
It will be interesting to see if it can grab the only seat where it has an outside chance of winning in the entire state as BJD and a resurgent BJP are already a force to reckon. 23rd of May will bear the testimony of that.
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