 "LS polls: Temple narrative not a guarantee for victory in Odisha elections")
At 9.30 am, it’s humid with an overcast sky in Puri — a familiar setting of the coastal town. In a makeshift air-conditioned tunnel, devotees are waiting to have darshan (glimpse) of Lord Jagannatha at the 12th-century shrine, thanks to the Naveen Patnaik government’s “thoughtful arrangement”.
Minutes later, the clouds give way to the scorching sun.
A heated discussion ensues metres away when a local woman confronts a police constable.
She blames Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government for displacing small businesses because of the Parikrama (heritage corridor) project.
“We were left in the cold,” laments Tilottama Behera, who used to run a makeshift shop on the road in front of the temple.
Amid much fanfare in January, days before the consecration ceremony of Lord Rama in Ayodhya, Patnaik inaugurated the 75-metre heritage corridor in Puri.
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The city’s infrastructure also got a facelift, and the project, including the promotional activities, cost the government around Rs 4,500 crore.
The BJD government, in its fifth term, has revamped major temples across the state, a move political analysts claim is a counter to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Ram Mandir narrative.
The government has so far allocated Rs 3,709 crore towards the preservation of Jagannatha culture and the development of amenities near places of worship under the Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha scheme.
Weeks after the Puri corridor, Patnaik inaugurated the Rs 200 crore revamped Samaleswari temple in Sambalpur.
While locals in Puri admit that the temple badly needed an expansion to cater to the rising number of footfall, not all are happy.
“I gave up two shops for the project and am waiting for the full compensation,” rues Balaram Kundu, who runs a 70-year-old utensil shop barely 100 metres from the temple corridor.
Centuries-old houses and mutts were also demolished as part of the project.
“Puri is also known for the culture of mutts,” says Shyamprakash Senapati, a social activist, flagging other local issues that the BJD government had ignored and “would impact the polls”.
In February, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw laid the foundation stone for a much-delayed rail overbridge in the town. Completion of the bridge is one of the poll promises made by Sambit Patra, the BJP’s Lok Sabha (LS) candidate for Puri, who has stationed himself in the constituency after losing to BJD’s Pinaki Misra by just 11,714 votes in 2019.
The Puri LS seat, which goes to the polls on May 25, has been held by the BJD since 1998. In 2019, the BJD lost two of the seven Assembly seats, including Puri, to the BJP. This time, it has fielded former Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik.
‘The second Puri’
After a grueling day with temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius, devotees start streaming in at the 16th-century Samaleswari temple by the Mahanadi river.
Anubha Mund, a first-time voter, enjoys spending her evening here after its makeover in an area of over 40 acres, on the lines of the Puri temple, which saw the rehabilitation of 250 families.
“Footfall has increased. This is going to be the second Puri,” says Amit Nayak, an autorickshaw driver in Sambalpur which goes to the polls on May 25.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of the BJP is fighting against BJD’s Pranab Prakash Das for the seat. Both the Sambalpur LS and Assembly seats are currently represented by the BJP.
Bhagaban Meher, a retired state government officer, says the impact of the Samaleswari temple renovation is limited to the city.
“We may see a different pattern of voting for the LS and Assembly polls. People want Narendra Modi to come back to power,” he said. “The Ram temple event will play a role, but only in some pockets.”
Ahead of the Ram temple event, Pradhan took part in invitational outreach programmes in the state and accused the BJD government of politicising the Puri temple inauguration.
In its manifesto, the BJP has promised to re-establish the evicted mutts, open all the gates of the Jagannatha temple, and speed up the investigation for the missing key of the temple Ratna Bhandar, triggering criticisms by the BJD.
Senior journalist Sandeep Mishra says the BJD, with its temple renovation push, had succeeded in diluting the BJP’s narrative and lessening the gains the rival party could have achieved.
Bikram Panch, a voter from the Kakatpur Assembly seat under Puri, will vote for a change.
Echoes Kundu, but he says local political dynamics and women voters would be decisive.