Who will win Smart City Numero One
Bhubaneswar, May 22: Even as counting Lok Sabha and Assembly election ballots begins on Thursday morning, people in the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency await with baited breath to see who wins the heart of people of Smart City Numero One.
Biju Janata Dal Candidate and former Mumbai top cop Arun Patnaik was pitted against former IAS Aparajita Sarangi and CPI’s Janardan Pati in one of the most prestigious constituency in Odisha. The pitting of two former bureaucrats by the arch rivals BJP and BJD had created an interesting situation in the constituency and the campaign had been high decibel.
But Aparajita appeared to have stolen the march against Patnaik even before the poll started and had been the first choice of voters irrespective of their class, division or category. Aparajita was known to contest from the constituency long before the election was scheduled and had the advantage of being known to people in the area during her IAS stint and especially as Commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation. She had also done a lot for the teachers community during her stint in the Education Department.
Aparajita was also ahead of Patnaik in campaigning as she had embarked on her personal contact mission soon after getting relieved from her government job. In a nutshell, she was perhaps the only candidate in all the parties whose constituency was nearly certain. She travelled extensively in her constituency a long before others were ready for the polls. At the booths on the polling day, a large number of voters did not flinch to admit that they had voted for her for the Lok Sabha constituency.
The biggest problem Patnaik faced during the poll was his lack of interaction with the rural mass as he remained out of the State for a long time as a police officer of Maharashtra. Many voters had admitted on the polling day that they had never seen the candidate before the polls. Pati too had remained out of political limelight for long and surfaced in the poll arena almost suddenly.
