The prestigious Cuttack Lok Sabha seat is all set to witness a tough battle between six-time MP Bhartruhari Mahtab and Santrupt Misra, who is for the first time testing electoral politics after resigning as HR head of Aditya Birla Group.
The BJP has nominated Mahtab for the Cuttack Lok Sabha seat from where he was elected on a BJD ticket five years ago but joined the saffron camp very recently. The BJD has nominated Misra, who also joined the ruling party a few days back.
Mahtab will contest from the prestigious Cuttack constituency, which he has been representing since 1998 as part of the BJD. The son of Odisha’s first Chief Minister Harekrushna Mahtab, he recently resigned from the regional party expressing displeasure over its functioning. The MP has won the Cuttack seat continuously on a BJD ticket. This time, he is going to face the election from BJP, the principal opposition party of the BJD.
There is no dispute that the Cuttack MP segment has been a stronghold of the ruling BJD and senior MLAs are representing from the constituencies coming under the LS constituency. In 2019, excluding the Baratabati-Cuttack MLA seat, the BJD had swiped all other six MLA seats under Cuttack LS constituency.
“We are expecting a very good result in Odisha. A wave of change is seen in the state in favour of the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good work will be instrumental for the victory of our candidates in the state,” Mahtab said after getting the BJP ticket.
Apart from Mahtab, the BJP has also fielded Rabindra Narayan Behera, a former Director of the National Informatics Centre, from Jajpur, a reserved seat for scheduled castes while Sukanta Kumar Panigrahi, associated with the Sangh Parivar for a long time, got a BJP ticket for the Kandhamal Lok Sabha constituency.
Panigrahi has been fielded from Kandhamal after Kharabela Swain, the BJP’s candidate in 2019, refused to contest from the same seat. Swain was interested in the Balasore Lok Sabha constituency. Five years ago, Swain had lost to BJD’s Achyuta Samanta by a margin of 1,49,216 votes.
Panigrahi had in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, contested from the Kandhamal seat but finished third. This time, he will take on BJD’s sitting MP Achyuta Samanta.
In Jajpur, the saffron camp reposed faith in Behera after its nominee for the last two Lok Sabha elections, Amiya Kanta Mallick, failed to beat the BJD.
However, Mallick was able to increase the party’s vote share from 15.37 per cent in 2014 to 40.5 per cent in 2019. He was reportedly not keen on the parliamentary seat this time and instead wanted to contest from the Binjharpur assembly seat.
The BJP has announced candidates for all 21 Lok Sabha seats in the State while the BJD has, so far, announced 15 MP candidates. However, the Congress has yet to announce a single candidate for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the State.
