Bhubaneswar, May 9: The Kendrapara Assembly constituency in Odisha is witnessing an intriguing battle among three turncoats.
Former Congress MLA and ex-minister Ganeswar Behera, who was with the grand old party until last month, is now representing the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Sipra Mallick, a former MLA, recently quit the BJD after Ganeswar joined the ruling party. She is now contesting on the Congress ticket.
Zilla Parishad chairperson of Kendrapara, Gitanjali Sethi, who resigned from the BJD last week, is the BJP candidate for the Kendrapara seat.
The contest between Sipra and Ganeswar is a battle of old rivals. In the 2014 Assembly elections, Sipra, as a BJD candidate, defeated Congress’ Ganeswar from the Kendrapara seat. Interestingly, back in 1995, Ganeswar had fought the election as a Congress candidate and defeated Sipra of the Janata Dal from the Pattamundai seat.
These three candidates switched sides after deserting their parent parties, causing discontentment among workers of all three major political parties: the Congress, BJD, and BJP.
In the three camps, some workers are reportedly unhappy over the party’s decision to nominate turncoats as its candidate from this Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved seat.
