Do Recent Bypoll Results Indicate Sympathy’s Victory Over Real Issues ?

Padampur: Odisha’s ruling BJD was immensely confident about its candidate Barsha Singh Bariha’s victory in the Padampur by-election which resulted well for the conch party.

If the people of Padampur are to be believed, it was not a fight over political issues, so it resulted in the victory of ‘sympathy’.

Though it was not so easy for Barsha to frame herself in a political barrack, defeating two senior leaders on their home ground deserves applause.

Hence Padampur repeated the same story for BJD, which had earlier happened for BJP in the Dhamnagar by-election.

Late BJP leader, Bishnu Charan Sethi’s son Suryavanshi Suraj also emerged victorious by smacking BJD’s ‘woman card’.

Outcomes of the recent two byelections in Odisha simply define how political parties field their candidates to encash the emotions of simple people.

Though after defeat, both parties traded barbs over the electoral process, it is totally understandable that the ’emotional card’ had been played by both parties whenever they had the ball on their ground.

And here in Padampur, Barsha has emerged as the frontrunner with the party already keen to cash in on the sympathy wave while playing the woman card.

Like Dhamnagar, which was a BJP seat that the party retained, Padampur– the BJD bastion, is now safely conquered by the conch party before going to the 2024’s grand battle.