By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/BIJEPUR/BARGARH: With more than two weeks in hand, three major political parties in Odisha, the ruling BJD, Oppositions BJP and Congress have stepped up their campaign for the Bijepur by-polls slated for October 21.
BJD had fielded former MLA and widow of former MLA Subala Sahu, Rita Sahu while BJP put Sanat Gadtia, who unsuccessfully fought against the State Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in last Assembly polls and Congress went with Dilip Panda.
Apart from three key candidates, two more are in fray while taking the total candidate to five. By-polls necessitated after Chief Minister Patnaik, who had won two seats, kept his traditional Hinjili in southern districts of Ganjam and left the Bijepur seat resulting for by-polls.
BJD, BJP and Congress have pressed as many as 120 leaders for campaigning. BJD Supremo Naveen Patnaik will be campaigning for the party candidate Rita Sahu to retain the Assembly seat. Other senior leaders including Ananga Udaya Singhdeo, Prasanna Acharya, Prafulla Mallick, Naba Kishore Das, Pranab Prakash Das, Tukuni Sahu, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Raseswari Panigrahi, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Kalikesh Narayan Singhdeo and Snehangini Chhuria have also been named in the list.
For the BJP candidate Sanat Gadtia, the leaders including union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani and Pratap Sarangi, Jual Oram, Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, Suresh Pujari, Sambit Patra, Manoj Tiwari, Basanta Panda, KV Singhdeo, Pradip Purohit and Radharani Panda will hit the campaign trail in Bijepur to woo voters.
Meanwhile, Congress released its 40-member star campaigners list with the names including AICC President Sonia Gandhi, former party head Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi and party’s state in-charge Jitendra Singh for party’s MLA nominee Dilip Panda to recapture the constituency.
