Religious equations, caste, key to victory

ROURKELA: Forget about development plank, parties in Sundargarh district are banking heavily on the traditional complex caste and religious equations to derive maximum mileage in the three-tier panchayat elections. Toeing the line, the grass-root leaders are busy wooing what they call the ‘pocket votes’. Of the total nine lakh rural voters, the Christian votes account for around two lakh and 99 per cent of them are converted tribals.  Among the non-Christian electorate the Bhuiyan, Kisan and Agharia (general farming community) are the most dominating segments.  The Bhuiyan and Kisan tribes are spread over Sundargarh, Talsara, Bonai and Rajgangpur Assembly segments and their presence is enormous.  Conservatively, the Agharia voters come to around a lakh concentrated in Sundargarh and Talsara Assembly segments and Bargaon block.Senior Congress leader Kishore Chandra Patel said caste equations do play a decisive role in the district politics, but cited instances when parties suffered surprise defeats.   An observer claimed that the victory of Congress MP Hemanand Biswal and MLAs Yogesh Singh and Prafulla Majhi along with suspended BJP legislator Bhimsen Choudhary from the Bhuiyan tribe is no surprise. He also pointed at the presence of Congress leader Ranjit Kisan and BJD’s Mangla Kisan and Dayanidhi Kisan of the Kisan tribe. State BJP executive member KP Sahu admitted to the constraints faced by the Saffron party in allotting tickets to candidates, courtesy the clumsy equations.   Rourkela BJD president AC Mohanty said a balance has been struck as candidates of Christian and other tribal communities have been fielded as per winnability.  Other tribal groups, including the Oram, Kharia and Munda populations, are also being targeted by the parties to win the 35-member prestigious Zilla Parishad council.