Berhampur: While the ruling BJD faces a problem of plenty, major political parties seem to be facing an uphill task in fielding candidates for the prestigious Berhampur parliamentary constituency for the coming Lok Sabha election. The constituency is spread across Ganjam and Gajapati districts.BJD, which won the seat in the last two elections, has a number of aspirants. The Congress and BJP, on the other hand, face a dearth of suitable local candidates to challenge the ruling party candidate. BJP had won the seat in 1999, while it was a Congress citadel till 1998 as the Grand Old Party had won 12 times from there.In the last Lok Sabha election held in 2014, BJD’s Siddhant Mohapatra had won the seat. Former Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahu and former deputy speaker of assembly Rama Chandra Panda had contested on Congress and BJP tickets, respectively, from the seat. Ironically, both these leaders are now in the ruling party.Besides Mohapatra, the names of Sahu, Panda and T Gopi, state secretary of the BJD, are doing the rounds as the probable BJD candidate from Berhampur. Sahu was elected from the seat in 2004 and became a minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.Similarly, Panda was elected to the assembly in 2000 from Chhatrapur assembly segment under Berhampur LS seat. Gopi, a senior party leader, is also an aspirant, and claims that he represents the minority linguistic community (Telegu), which constitutes around 30 to 40% population of the constituency. Srirup Deb, son of cabinet minister Usha Devi, is among the aspirants. Deb also has considerably influence over Telugu voters, a political analyst said.A BJD source said Sahu is the frontrunner as he commands more influence in the constituency, while the sitting MP might be moved to neighbouring Aska as the sitting BJD MP from there Ladu Kishore Swain died recently due to illness.“BJD supreme and chief minister Naveen Patnaik will take the final decision about the candidature, considering all aspects,” BJD’s district president Pradeep Panigrahy said.Lobbying is yet to begin for the seat in the BJP and the Congress though the district units of both the parties claim they have no dearth of candidates to challenge the BJD.The BJP aspirants include the party’s state unit general secretary, Bhrugu Baxipatra, and the party’s district unit president, Kanhu Charan Pati. Bhrugu is the son of Harish Chandra Baxipatra, a minister in Biju Patnaik cabinet while Kanhu is the son of former MLA from Chikiti Jagannath Pati. Party insiders said an outsider may be fielded from Berhampur.Similarly in Congress, names of former assembly speaker Chintamani Dyansamantara, district working president Deepak Patnaik, MLA (Paralakhemundi) K Surya Rao and district Congress president Trinath Behera are doing the rounds. Behera is the former MLA of Gopalpur.

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