How President Droupadi Murmu became a rallying point for BJP and BJD in Odisha's Mayurbhanj

Odisha’s Mayurbhanj constituency came to focus in 2022 when Droupadi Murmu was elected the President of India.

Odisha’s Mayurbhanj constituency came to the forefront in 2022 when Droupadi Murmu was elected the President of India. Murmu started her political career in Mayurbhanj in 1997 after getting elected as a councillor from the Rairangpur notified area council (Nagar Panchayat).

Murmu belongs to the Santhal tribe which has a prominent presence in the districts of Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar. Currently held by BJP leader and Union Minister Bishweswar Tudu, this seat being the President’s bastion carries high stakes in the Lok Sabha polls.

This time, the two major players BJD and BJP have changed their candidates while JMM has once again nominated its state president Anjani Soren, daughter of JMM founder Shibu Soren from the seat. However, the main contest is between BJD candidate Sudam Marandi and BJP’s Naba Charan Majhi. The BJP candidate Majhi is the sitting MLA from Rairangpur Assembly seat which Droupadi Murmu represented twice in the past. However, one thing is common for both BJP and BJD- the President is a campaign point.

How does Murmu matter to the BJP campaign?

Over the years, Murmu epitomised the BJP commitment to women representation and the mariginalised. Many BJP leaders have mentioned her appointment during the Assembly elections in 2023. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also now and then mentioned about his regime’s decision to nominate “Odisha’s daughter” to the country’s highest constitutional post.

PM Modi, who is expected to visit Baripada in the district on Wednesday, has also often mentioned his regime’s decision to nominate “Odisha’s daughter” to the country’s highest constitutional post. The BJP hopes that more people will vote for them only because of its “Murmu decision”.

The BJP first won the Mayurbhanj seat, which is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST), in 1998 and then again in 1999 when its candidate was Salkhan Murmu.

BJD ups ante

Led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the BJD is all set to ensure that only the BJP should not project Murmu as its success story. The BJD has been saying in its campaigns that the President is the “daughter of the soil”. “The daughter of the soil and my sister Droupadi Murmu is the president of India. Respecting the daughter of this soil, the Biju Janata Dal supported her in the presidential elections,” Patnaik said at a recent rally.

During the presidential elections, the BJD had made efforts to garner support for Murmu’s candidature. The state government has also named a medical college in Baripada after Pandit Raghunath Murmu, a celebrated Santhali poet and the creator of the Ol Chiki script.

However, the BJD's efforts to woo Mayurbhanj voters did not begin immediately. After losing the 2019 polls, the BJD appointed its organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das, popularly known as Bobby, as Mayurbhanj observer. Das helped the party regain ground in the district and ensured the party’s victory in the 2022 panchayat polls when the BJD formed the Zilla Parishad.