BHUBANESWAR: Even as the political parties gear up for the panchayat polls after the filing of the nomination papers, presence of a large number of rebel candidates has turned out to be a problem for the leaders. The highest number of rebel candidates are from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) followed by the Congress. Even the number of the rebels are yet to be compiled, for every Zilla Parishad (ZP) seat there are one or two rebels. In some seats, their number is more, a senior BJD leader said, adding that in coastal Odisha Independents will be spoilers for the political parties. If candidates for gram panchayats are taken into account, the number of rebel candidates in the BJD will be a few hundreds. While rebel candidates are posing problems for the BJD leadership, factionalism is going to affect the prospects of Congress. Acute factionalism has surfaced in all districts with different groups trying to take a lion’s share of the tickets. In several districts, candidates have been fielded by the rival groups against the official nominees. A senior Congress leader said that this is going to seriously affect the party’s prospects in the polls. Leaders of all the main political parties have launched frantic efforts to persuade the rebels to drop. “Things will be clear only after the last date of withdrawal of candidature,” Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Arjya Kumar Gyanendra said. While the BJD and Congress have fielded candidates in all the 854 seats, the BJP candidates are in 821 ZP seats. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has fielded candidates in 60 ZP seats. Even as parties gear up for the polls, Red terror looms large over several parts of the State. The State Election Commission (SEC) has announced that nomination papers can be filed in those seats which have drawn a blank from January 22 to 24. The scrutiny will be done on January 25 and the last date for withdrawal is January 27.
Comments
0 comment