Odisha: BJD relies on youthful combatants to confront adversaries

Seeking a state record sixth term, the BJD seems to be placing a lot of money on youthful faces to win the next elections. For the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, the party has fielded at least twenty-one candidates under the age of forty.

The governing party’s emphasis on youth may be a sign that it hopes to develop the next generation of leaders, but it is also an attempt to prevent anti-incumbency sentiment against the current group of lawmakers and MPs. But a significant portion of those selected are dynasts—sons or daughters of current MPs, MLAs, or leaders.

The party has put forth nominees for 21 parliamentary seats and 126 Assembly seats so far. Three of the party’s MP candidates in Aska, Dhenkanal, and Koraput are in their 30s, while at least 18 of the Assembly candidates are under 40.

Deepali Das, the 27-year-old daughter of the late minister Naba Kishore Das, is the youngest candidate selected by the party to run for the Assembly districts. After her father passed away in a by-election last year, she was chosen again, this time on the Jharsuguda party ticket.

Ankit Jena, the 28-year-old engineer son of the former minister Pratap Jena, is a candidate from Mahanga. Another young person the party is fielding is Dharakote royal Sulakhyana Gitanjali Devi, who is the daughter of former Sanakhemundi MLA Nandini Devi. In the Ganjam district, Gitanjali is the chairwoman of the Dharakote block.

The party’s candidates for Padampur, Barsha Singh Bariha, and Choudwar-Cuttack, Sauvik Biswal, are both in their early 30s. Both Rohit Joseph Tirkey, the BJD’s Birmitrapur candidate, and Anusaya Patra, his Badasahi opponent, are 34 years old. The 35-year-old MLAs from Khallikote and Pipili, Suryamani Baidya and Rudra Pratap Maharathy, are vying for the seats. Devi Tripathy and Laxmipriya Naik, who will compete from the Banki and Chitrakonda seats, respectively, are a year older than Suryamani and Rudra.

Son of late BJD heavyweight Maheswar Mohanty, Puri contestant Sunil Mohanty is 38 years old. Both Prabhu Jani, the regional party’s face in Laxmipur, and Bishnubrata Routray, the candidate for Basudevpur, are 39 years old. Among them are four people in their 40s who are the oldest: Rupesh Panigrahi (Paralakhemundi), Nihar Ranjan Behera (Loisingha), Sanghamitra Swain (Sorada), and Navina Naik (Umerkote).

Regarding the MP seats, the candidate from Aska Lok Sabha, Ranjita Sahu, is just thirty-two years old, while the contender from Dhenkanal constituency, Abinash Samal, is thirty-six. Kaushalya Hikka, the MP candidate from Koraput, is 37 years old. In the 2019 elections, engineer Chandrani Murmi of the BJD became the party’s youngest member of parliament (MP) when she defeated two-term MP Ananta Nayak to win the Keonjhar parliamentary seat.

According to party insiders, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik prioritized youth this time around while choosing candidates for MP and MLA seats because he thinks that investing in the next generation is an investment in the future.