Amid row over 'Lord Jagannath' remarks, Puri Lok Sabha seat to vote on May 25
May 21, 2024
Puri (Odisha) [India], May 21 : Ahead of the polling in the Puri, Sambit Patra triggered a political row with his controversial remarks, saying, "Lord Jagannath is a devotee (bhakt) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi". Later, he described the comments as a "slip of the tongue".
The Puri Lok Sabha constituency will be voting on May 25 in the sixth phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats. The seat is currently represented by BJD's Pinaki Misra.
Sambit Patra of BJP, Jaya Narayan of Congress and BJD's Arup Patnaik are standing against each other.
Patnaik, Former Mumbai Police Commissioner, is contesting his second consecutive Lok Sabha election.
He was inducted to BJD in April 2018 by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He made his electoral debut in the 2019 general elections as a BJD candidate from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat but lost to BJP's Aparajita Sarangi.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that the BJP leader has hurt "Odia Asmita" and calling "Mahaprabhu a bhakt of another human being is an insult to the Lord".
Targetting the BJP over his remarks, Congress said, "hero-worship is a road to eventual dictatorship".
The row was triggered a day after Prime Minister Modi held a roadshow in the holy city of Puri on Monday morning along with BJP candidate Sambit Patra.
Patra had lost the election in 2019 to Pinaki Mishra of the BJD. Mishra had secured 538,321 votes (47.4 percent) while Patra had obtained 526, 607 votes (46.4 per cent). Satya Prakash Nayak of Congress had acheived 44, 734 votes (3.9 per cent).
Pinaki Mishra had also won the seat in the 2014 general elections. He had defeated Sucharita Mohanty of Congress by 263, 361 votes.
Assembly elections and Lok Sabha elections in Odisha are being held simultaneosuly in four phases running from May 13 to June 1.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJD won 12 seats, the BJP finished a close second at 8, and the Congress bagged just a lone seat.
In the 2014 general elections, BJD had won 20 seats and the BJP managed to secure one seat.
In the 2019 Assembly election, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won 112 out of 146 seats, while Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) won 23 seats and Congress won 9.
The Lok Sabha elections are being held across seven phases, from April 19 to June 1. The counting is scheduled for June 4.
