Seizing on Hockey World Cup success, BJD falls back on Dilip Tirkey in bid to breach Jual Oram fort

Riding on the Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government’s success in hosting the men’s Hockey World Cup 2023 and its significant efforts for promotion of the sport, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has pulled out all stops to win the Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat, which has remained elusive for the ruling party since 1997 when it was founded by Patnaik.

The BJD has again roped in hockey icon Dilip Tirkey, a household name in Sundargarh, also known as a “cradle of Indian hockey”, to take on the BJP’s tribal face and former Union minister Jual Oram. Though the Congress also has a notable vote base in the tribal-dominated region through which Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra passed, the fight is mainly between the BJP and the BJD.

Sundargarh, along with four other Lok Sabha seats and 35 Assembly segments, will go to the polls on Monday.

Oram, 63, who has won the seat five times between 1998 and 2019, is making an emotional pitch as he is seeking votes for his “last election”. He is confident of winning the seat for a sixth time.

“Dilip Tirkey is like my younger brother and a good hockey star. Hei s an expert at playing hockey, but I am an expert in politics. Hockey is different and politics is something different,” said Oram, during a recent interaction with the media.

It is, however, not the first time when Oram and Tirkey have locked horns in the seat, reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, given that Sundargarh district has over 80% tribal population.

Despite being his first direct electoral battle, Tirkey, a former captain of the Indian hockey team, had strongly taken on Oram in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, losing with a slim margin of 18,829 votes. Tirkey had bagged 3,21,679 votes against Oram’s 3,40,508.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha