Chhatrapur, Oct 18: Queeen of Khallikote V Sugnana Kumari Deo has ruled the constituency for over five decades as a political leader. Now, she has not been in active politics for the last two terms. However, her proxy rule continues.
The BJD leader got elected to Odisha Assembly for the first time in 1961 and the ten-time MLA has a strong grip on Khallikote Assembly constituency Deo was a MLA of the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th Assembly.
She was the MLA of Khallikote for five terms from 1985 to 2004 (3-time from Janata Dal and 2-time from BJD).
In 2009 and 2014 she won from Kabisuryanagar as the Khallikote seat got reserved for the Schedule Caste. She quit active politics due to health issues in 2019 and did not contest. Now she is staying in Chennai. However, she has been controlling the Kabisuryanagar politics and her obedient are representing the constituency with her blessings.
Purnachandra Sethi won the seat in 2009 and 2014 with her blessings and Suryamani Baidya in 2019.
Daitari Behera had formed an organisation ‘Sugnana Sena’ after her name before 2019 general election. His wife Suryamani Baidya got the BJD ticket in 2019 and won. Later Daitari became the chairman of Khallikote block.
However, her blessings on two persons from a family was not easily accepted by party leaders and Daitari's monopoly created disturbance in the party following which the queen is not happy on him.
Works department executive engineer Niranjan Behera took voluntary retirement following the queen's blessings and got elected as Khallikote NAC chairman. Now he has taken charge of the party organisation and visiting villages ahead of 2024 election. The constituency is reserved for Scheduled Caste and it is reported that Niranjan Behera is going to fight as BJD’s MLA candidate with blessings of Sugnana Kumari Deo.
