The election campaign for the first phase polls in Orissa came to an end this evening. In this phase voting will be held for 10 parliamentary constituencies and 70 assembly seats on 16 April.
The prominent persons whose fate will be sealed in the ballot box day after tomorrow included chief minister Naveen Patnaik and senior Congress leader and Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahoo.
Most of these seats going to poll in the first phase belong to western and southern parts of the state. Before the break up of the BJD-BJP tie up in the state the saffron party had a relatively better strength in these areas and was locked in direct fight with the Congress in the last elections.
But in the new equations, BJP will be testing its real popularity in a triangular contest with the BJD and the Congress. The BJD, on its part, has fielded candidates for the first time in many seats in this region after the break up of the alliance.
The parliamentary constituencies which are going to polls in the first phase are Baragarh, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Bolangir, Kalhandi, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Aska, Berhampur and Koraput.
The prominent candidates for the parliamentary polls in this phase include former chief minister and Congress leader Giridhar Gomango (INC), Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahoo (INC), Sidhanta Mohapatra (BJD), Ashok Sahu (BJP), Bhakta Charan Das (INC), Kalikesh Singhdeo (BJD), Rohit Pujari (BJD), former chief minister Hemananda Biswal (INC), the deputy leader of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Narasingha Misra (INC), Jual Oram (BJP) and Hamid Hussain (BJD).
Similarly, important persons whose fate will be decided in voting for the state assembly seats include the chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Jaynarayan Misra (BJP), Prasanna Acharya (BJD), Sanatan Bisi (BJD), Orissa assembly speaker Kishore Mohanty (BJD), Suresh Pujari (BJP), Bimbadhar Kuanr (BJP), Anand Acharya (BJD), Surya Narayn Patro (BJD), Sugyani K Deo (BJD) and Satya Bhushan Sahoo (INC).
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The issues which dominated the election campaign in the state included the Rs 2 per kg rice scheme and alleged negligence by the Centre to the state’s interest by the BJD and failure to utilise the Central assistance among others.
If it is BJD, which is trying to sell Naveen’s clean image to garner votes, the BJP was bent upon exposing him as a “betrayer”. The state Congress leadership raised the issue of failure of the Naveen Patnaik government to utilise the Central funds provided for various schemes. Similarly, the party also tried to convince the people that the Centre is contributing the lion’s share of the subsidy in the Rs 2 per kg rice scheme deflating the claims of the state government on this front. .
The campaigning which started in a lackluster way initially, later picked up as several senior national leaders like BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP’s national president Rajnath Singh, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, BSP supremo Mayawati, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Union minister Oscar Fernandez and the BJD supremo and Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik addressing several election meetings.
While the national political parties utilised their star campaigners in Orissa, Patnaik was the only star campaigner for BJD. Leading actors from Hindi film industry like Hemamalini and Satrughna Sinha and Oriya film actors Rachana and Anubhav also campaigned for various candidates.