"SANKHA, sankha!" says a vegetable seller in Sambalpur emphatically, when asked who he would vote for this time in the elections. Sankha-the conch shell-is the electoral symbol of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which is vying for an unprecedented sixth consecutive term in office. When asked about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flag also attached to his cart, he responds: "They are the same. They are together." Across towns and villages of western Odisha, people have been trying to make sense of the BJD and the BJP's electoral campaigns, locked in an apparently no-holds-barred fight for regional power. This has happened less than two months after they seemed to be on the verge of a pre-election agreement that would have virtually sealed the fate of the state for the next five years even before a single vote was cast.
Now, it has rapidly become one of the most high-pitched battles of the remaining phases of the electoral contest, not the least because the assembly elections for the mineral-rich state are also being held simultaneously. Five-time chief minister Naveen Patnaik may be in for the most serious challenge to his leadership in decades.
As his car trails the narrow, zig-zag streets of old Sambalpur on the way to a roadshow and a campaign meeting, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan feigns ignorance about the alliance plans. "We (the BJP and the BJD) have been fighting with each other at the political level for the last three elections. Due to a lack of governance and a lack of vision, people are unhappy with the incumbent government and its leadership. People want a change," he claims.
Pradhan, the most high-profile face of the BJP in Odisha, has returned to the state after a gap of more than two decades, having served as a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh from 2012 to 2024, and holding important portfolios in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet.
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