Politics is difficult than playing hockey: Dilip Tirkey

ROURKELA: Former Indian Hockey captain Dilip Tirkey says politics is difficult than playing hockey. “In politics, you can’t always do what you want. And then get blamed for it,” says the 36-year-old penalty corner specialist.

Tirkey learnt hockey the tribal way, tying up tender bamboo sticks to get the curved end of a hockey stick. He played over 400 matches, received a Padmashree, and became a Rajya Sabha member.

“No party, no CM has backed a sportsperson for a Rajya Sabha seat. I was the first,” he says. And now, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given Tirkey the task of winning the Lok Sabha seat from Sundargarh on a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ticket, a seat the BJP is desperate to win.

In cricket-crazy India, Sundargarh is rare place where hockey rules. “Sports can change lives here. Nearly 4,000 tribal youths apply for the 40-50 seats available for hostels here,” says the soft-spoken local hero, who is a big draw here.

The district has 7 assembly constituencies. In 2009, the BJD had left the seat to CPI(M), and it explored a similar seat-arrangement with JMM this time, but dropped the idea. The Congress candidate from this seat, Hemanand Biswal, who had two brief stints as CM, isn’t much of a force to reckon with.

So, the fight is mainly between Roman Catholic Tirkey, who can tap into the large Christian tribal votes, and BJP candidate and former Union minister Jual Oram, a three-time MP before Biswal beat him in 2009.

As a former minister of tribal affairs at the Centre, Oram built tribal hostels. “Tirkey is an outsider and Biswal has done little, he has not even spent his MP LAD fund,” he says.

Oram hails from Bonai – a Communist stronghold -- from where he won the assembly elections twice. He also campaigned against Posco's plans to mine iron ore in the district, winning many loyalists in the area.

Another BJP candidate Dilip Ray, who had been a Union as well as state minister, and a billionaire hotelier in his own right, has filed his nomination from the Rourkela seat, and is busy preparing for BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi scheduled visit to the city on April 4.

He is also sweating it out in the congested slums of Raghunathpalli, a BJD stronghold, with local minority leader Gaeysuddin -- Gas Chacha -- by his side. Ray is using his long association with the city effectively, knowing well that minority voters could tilt the balance here. Ray even reminds you that as Steel Minister in Vajpayee's government, he had cleared a Rs 8,754 crore package for the Rourkela Steel Plant.

One of BJD's founding member, Ray had fallen out with the leadership and had been expelled by Biju Patnaik in 2002. He then joined Congress where he mentored sitting BJD MLA and 2014 candidate Sharada Nayak.