Bhubaneswar: Member of Parliament, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, who got injured during a scuffle inside the Lok Sabha on Thursday may look simple and frail but is a tough nut to crack. The BJP parliamentarian, a former Union Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Small and Medium Enterprises, once wished to become a monk but eventually chose politics as a career.
The two-time MP from Balasore, a constituency in northern Odisha, has always remained in the news for his gift of the gab – he can speak and write in Odia, Hindi and Sanskrit with equal aplomb as has been his roller-coaster political career. A man with minimal needs, who believes in simple life even as a minister, is no sage in real life. The dhoti- kurta clad 69 year old grass-root BJP man with his salt and pepper beard, can actually be very abrasive when it comes to a fight of any sort.
Sarangi, who was admitted to Ram Manohar Hospital in Delhi following an injury he sustained allegedly by a push by Rahul Gandhi, is a known rabble-rouser. He was the head of Bajrang Dal in Odisha when the gruesome murder of the Australian missionary Graham Staines with his two small sons took place in 1999. They were burnt alive while sleeping, allegedly by a Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh.
The two-time legislator from Nilgiri, prior to his becoming a Lok Sabha MP, had a stellar performance in the House including an alleged disrepute of attacking the Odisha Assembly in 2002 when Biju Janata Dal(BJD) led by Naveen Patnaik was in coalition with BJP. He still stays at his ancestral thatched house in Balasore and takes his bath in the pond in front of his house. He became a media favourite in Delhi when he built a thatched house in his ministerial quarter. Known for his simplicity and inexpensive campaign style during elections, Sarangi is dear to his electorate.
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