Sourabha Parida

Bhubaneswar, May 2: When Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointed Dharmendra Pradhan as Nandigram’s election in-charge, it was seen as a masterstroke by political analysts.

And, Pradhan has proved his organisational skill once again by Suvendu’s win in Nandigram that was a prestige battle for TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP also played the right card by having faith on proven organisational skills of Pradhan who has many times stood as a crisis manager for the party at the time of need.

The political hotspot in West Bengal Assembly election ‘Nandigram’ had hogged the limelight after Mamata accepted her friend-turned-foe Suvendu’s open challenge to contest against him there.

The election in Nadigram was highly polarised on the Hindu-Muslim issue as the constituency has a total of around 275,000 voters out of which 200,000 are Hindu.

From the very beginning, the BJP’s election in-charge for Nandigram, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was confident about his party’s victory in Nandigram.

And, Mamata’s three-day camping in Nandigram ignoring 29 other constituencies were to vote on April 1 in the second phase was indicating that the TMC intelligence was very aware of Pradhan’s confidence.  

Another part of Pradhan’s strategy for Nandigram was that Suvendu Adhikari was BJP’s main face on his poster unlikely in other constituencies to counter Mamata’s outsider sloganeering.

The message was clear that Adhikari’s political stature in the state is equal to the TMC supremo.