People of the Balikuda-Erasama constituency are jubilant as their MLA Raghunandan Das has been chosen for a berth in the Naveen Patnaik Ministry.
The things happened in a dramatic way in early April when Das was a ticket seeker from the BJP. As if it was a coincidence, the BJD expelled Damodar Rout who later joined the BJP and wanted the party ticket for the seat. After knowing that the BJP was going to oblige Rout, Das joined the BJD and the party chose him as its candidate.
Das’ political ups and downs show he was a strong anti-Congress leader of the area. For the first time, he had been given BJD ticket in the 2000 Assembly polls but was defeated by a margin of 1,219 votes by Congress candidate Umesh Swain, who was earlier political mentor of Das.
While in 2004 Assembly elections, Das was aspirant for BJD ticket, but due to the BJD-BJP seat sharing arrangements, Balikuda went to the saffron party which nominated Jyotish Das. Raghunandan Das contested as an Independent candidate getting supports of local BJD leaders. He scored plenty of BJD votes resulting in Jyotish Das’ defeat. Congress candidate Umesh Swain retained the seat.
For the 2009 polls, Das again sought BJD ticket for Balikuda-Erasama along with another aspirant, Prasant Kumar Muduli. Das was supported by district party leader Bishnu Das and Muduli had allegiance to Damodar Rout. Finally, Muduli obtained the ticket. This time, Das obeyed party decision and helped Muduli win. Consequently, the BJD won by a huge margin of 31,485 votes against Congress candidate Umesh Swain.
In 2014, Das repeated his BJD ticket claim but in vain. The party again fielded Muduli. Das contested as an Independent candidate and bagged 32,135 votes but lost to Muduli. Das was removed from the BJD.
Losing all hope of returning to the BJD, Das joined the BJP aiming to contest on a BJP ticket in the 2019 elections. But Damodar Rout’s entry to saffron party forced him to return to his parent party BJD. The BJD was searching a new face for the Balikuda-Erasama and gladly accepted Das and awarded him the ticket.
Das performed excellently well scoring 1,03,814 votes which was itself a record of sort as for the first time a candidate secured above one lakh votes in an Assembly segment in Jagatsinghpur district. He defeated his nearest Congress rival Lalatendu Mohapatra by a margin of 54,583 votes, the highest among all the four seats in the district.
Das has a clean political image. His father late Bipin Bihari Das was elected to the Assembly from 1961 to 1967. He is a Commerce graduate and also has a Law degree.
