Of the BJD candidates, 25% come from political families

Five women were among the ten candidates the governing BJD released on its fifth list for the upcoming Assembly elections; the majority of these women would be contesting elections for the first time.

Upon closer inspection, it is evident that the regional party’s selection criteria are dominated by family relationships. The governing party has selected new faces in its anti-incumbency effort, but it keeps turning to the same families.

Laxmipriya Nayak for Chitrakonda, Arundhati Devi for Deogarh, Barsha Singh Bariha for Padampur, Sanjukta Singh for Angul, Sulakshana Geetanjali Devi for Sanakhemundi, and Indira Nanda for Jeypore are the five women candidates the BJD announced on the same day. All of them have close political ties and are members of local political families.

While Arundhati Devi, who received a ticket for Deogarh, is the wife of current BJP MP Nitesh Ganga Deb of Sambalpur, Laxmipriya is the niece of incumbent BJD MLA of Chitrakonda Purna Chandra Baka. It’s interesting to note that she joined the governing party the day before she was nominated.

Similarly, Barsha Singh Bariha, the renominated candidate for Padampur, is the daughter-in-law of prominent BJP politician Rama Ranjan Baliarsingh and the eldest daughter of the late MLA Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha.

The Dharakote royal scion Sulakshana Geetanjali Devi, who is entering politics for the first time, was given a ticket in lieu of her mother Nandini Devi, a former Sanakhemundi MLA who was defeated in her re-run in 2019.

The governing party selected Indira Nanda from Jeypore in order to get rid of the anti-incumbency element. She is the spouse of prominent party leader and former minister Rabi Narayan Nanda. It has been difficult for the BJD to choose a candidate from the seat.

Thus far, the governing party has released the names for 126 seats. Of them, 33, or around 25% of the male and female candidates, come from politically active families or have close relatives who are also in politics.

At least twenty candidates who are contesting in the election for the first time have their names on this list.

Nominees nominated by the governing party include Kaushalya Pradhani, Latika Naik, and Nabina Naik, who took the place of their spouses. Sadasiva Pradhani is Kaushalya’s husband; Subash Gond is Nabina’s husband; and Dusmant Naik is Katika’s husband. In 2019, the spouses ran for the assembly on a BJD ticket. Similarly, seats from Basta, Paradip, and Badasahi have been offered to Subhasini Jena, Gitanjali Routray, and Anusaya Patra, respectively. While Gitanjali is married to Paradip MLA Sambit Routray, who is also the son of the late legendary BJD politician Damodar Rout, Subhashini is the wife of former Balasore MLA Rabindra Jena.

The BJD’s Soroda candidate, Sanghamitra Swain, is married to Purna Chandra Swain, the current MLA. Additionally, the party has renominated minister Rita Sahu, the late former Congress MLA Subal Sahu’s widow, and former minister Naba Kishore Das’ daughter Dipali Das from the Bijepur seat.

Rohit Joseph Tirkey, the party’s nominee for the Birmitrapur Assembly seat, is the son of tribal leader and four-time MLA George Tirkey. Anil Barwa, the candidate from Rajgangpur running on a BJD ticket, is the son of prominent party leader and former minister Mangala Kisan.

Political experts noted that parties often choose fresh faces from political families due to a number of variables.

Anil Kumar Mohapatra, a political science professor at FM University, said that “the major factor is known-face syndrome, which works well in garnering votes when a new candidate is picked from a prominent political family.”

Other elements that impact these choices include voters’ loyalty to a political family, local voting dynamics, and influencing legacy. Political parties often ride the “sympathy wave,” he said.

BJD spokespersons would to comment on why so many candidates from political families received nominations, but Laxmipriya Nayak, the party’s Chitrakonda candidate, said she was chosen only on the basis of her qualifications.

“As the president of BJD’s Mahila wing in Malkangiri, I have been sincerely working to popularize women-oriented welfare programs of the state government by going door-to-door in Chitrakonda and villages of Swabhiman Anchal,” the woman said.