BHUBANESHWAR: Right now the otherwise quiet Odisha district of Bargarh is seeing more union ministers, parliamentarians, MLAs, filmstars, politicians and their entourage than any poll in Odisha may ever have.Odisha’s two union ministers, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram , have been camping in western Odisha district for the last five days. Smriti Irani addressed three rallies on Monday, her colleague Santosh Gangawar has already made a trip. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will spend Monday night here during his hectic two-day schedule of rallies. This, when about 30 of his MLAs have fanned out canvassing in gram panchayats of this otherwise nondescript area, known for its ikkat sarees and its paddy fields.The heightened fervour of what could be the last bypoll before 2019 has turned Bijepur into a trailer of what’s to come in a year – a bitter battle between incumbent BJD and the BJP in the next simultaneous general and assembly polls in Odisha. In February last year the BJP had done surprisingly well in rural polls, winning 25 of the 34 zila parishad zones of the district (and 2 of the 3 zones in Bijepur). This has made it even more imperative for the BJD to win this.The bypolls for the Bijepur constituency are scheduled for February 24 and results will be announced on Feb 28. It was necessitated with the death of three time Congress MLA Subal Sahu in August last year.First Sahu’s widow, Rita Sahu, joined Patnaik’s BJD. It prompted the BJD’s Ashok Panigrahy to join the BJP and then district BJP president Narayan Sahu joining the BJD. Patnaik’s party and the BJP are now fighting a no-holds bar battle, with Sahu and Panigrahy, in a traditional Congress bastion.Meanwhile the Indian National Congress, after a prolonged deliberation finally fielded Pranaya Sahu a man may not have been as successful as Sahu but who enjoys a legitimacy that his competitors seem to have gambled upon. More importantly unlike the panchayat polls of last year, the Indian National Congress and all its warring factions infighting seem to have put aside their differences to campaign for their man.But all this swapping has left a section of voters confuses and frustrated. “All these years Sahu stood for Congress and got our votes, today his wife comes to convince us that all the development that happened was because of the BJD. How do we accept that,” said Amit Meher, a young man from Barpalli town who has decided, he might as well vote for the BJP.“We had always voted for Congress, if our neta (Rita Sahu) has moved we will too,” said Tapasi Loha in nearby Jalpalli. Her courtyard has both a string of flags of the BJP and the BJD, a larger flag with the BJD’s conch acts like a shade to a bright bulb in the weaver’s home. “In any case there’ll be polls again in eight months,” adds her daughter provoking considerable amusement.Their neighbour, Magardhaj Meher recalled how Panigrahy, when he had rebelled against his party’s decision to give senior leader Prasanna Acharya a ticket in 2014 and contested as an independent, asking them to vote for the hand symbol (and Sahu). Acharya lost to Sahu and was later nominated to the Rajya Sabha.Assembly elections were last held in 2014, simultaneously with the last general elections. The BJD holds 117 of 147 assembly seats and 20 of 21 parliamentary seats from Odisha. A loss in Bijepur’s bypolls could shake the belief that Patnaik will make a comfortable comeback in 2019, for a fifth term, despite the incumbency. A loss for the BJP, which has avoided asking party president Amit Shah to campaign, may dent the party’s claim of winning 120 seats in the next polls from its current position of 10.After the Patnaik’s party accused the BJP of trying to ferry Rs 40 laks seized by the police last weekend. The BJP met EC officials with a similar charge against the BJD. The Election Commission has been petitioned by both parties more often during this bypoll that it had during the 2014 general and assembly polls in Odisha.The energy invested in winning the Bijepur bypoll is not unusual insists BJD spokesperson and MP Pratap Keshari Deb. “We had five MLAs campaigning for the a zilla parishad in Balasore. We take every elections seriously.”