BJD new face in Patnaik home turf, Ranjita Sahu: Balancing start-up with NGO for migrant workers

Ranjita Sahu began connecting with the people of her small town Kodala in Ganjam district of Odisha, when she returned from Bengaluru after completing her higher studies in 2015, connecting migrant workers from Ganjam working in Gujarat’s Surat with their elderly parents back home.

Ranjita, 33, now heads an NGO for these migrant workers, Kodala Youth Forum, besides running her healthcare start-up. Her networks among common people are believed to have played a role in the BJD fielding her from the prestigious Aska seat in Odisha in the Lok Sabha polls.

Her father Hara Prasad Sahu, a BJD leader, was an aspirant for party ticket from the Kabisuryanagar Assembly seat, which is part of the Aska Lok Sabha constituency, but could not succeed. The Assembly polls are being held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections in the state.

A local business magnate with multiple ventures, Hara Prasad is a popular figure in the area, who has harboured political aspirations for a long time. He had even contested as an Independent from the

Kabisuryanagar seat in the 2014 Assembly polls and finished as the runner-up with over 35% vote share. He later joined the BJD.

Both of Ranjita’s parents — Hara Prasad and Sunita Prabha Sahu — had also been the chairperson of the Notified Area Council of Kodala. She heard the news of her nomination from Aska on a BJD ticket from her father. “Honestly, it came as a surprise,” she said. “My father is very happy, now that I have been made the Lok Sabha candidate on the seat.”

She admitted that at her age she had never thought of getting the ruling party’s nomination for the Lok Sabha polls. “Though electoral politics is new for me, I belong to a political family and have seen things from up close. I have always