Odisha: Is Cong Gaining Limelight Due to BJP’s Lack of Political Prudence?

A youth can walk faster but it is the experienced elder who knows the way – this can be explained as what the Congress uproar in the Odisha Assembly has been all about in the past few days. The uproar, mainly on the issue of rising crimes against women, led to the suspension of some of its MLAs, followed by a protest outside the House that reportedly turned violent.

Critics say the Congress, which has ruled India for more than six decades, should have exercised some discretion and maintained decorum in the House while demanding a debate on an issue that “has no specifics”.

In any healthy democracy, the Opposition has every right to point out the mistakes of the government in power, but this cannot be a mere “luxury of conviction from the ring side in painting everything in one colour”, they say.

While there is no problem in raising slogans or sitting on dharna inside the Well of the House, critics point out that Congress MLAs climbing on to the Speaker’s podium and “indulging in chaos” was not befitting of the Chair’s importance.

The Congress demanded that a House Committee be formed to probe the “dismal failure of law and order” as regards atrocities on women, their safety and record number of instances of child abuse in past nine months of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule, which the Speaker disallowed. This was followed by a ruckus by Congress MLAs who “obstructed” the House proceedings.

It did not stop at that. Four days ago, Congress MLAs entered the House and created an uproar with sounds of bells and other musical instruments demanding a house committee. The Speaker then suspended 12 Congress MLAs.  

Last Wednesday, the suspended Congress MLAs tried to enter the Assembly premises, breaking police barricades, which resulted in “kind of fisticuffs” between them and the police.

Senior political analyst Rabi Das, said, “As per normal traditions, the ruling party should have raised the security wall outside the Assembly premises, and not created a situation inside the premises”.

However, the police stopped the suspended Congress MLAs from entering the Assembly premises. This led to a “physical clash”. There were reportedly exchange of blows, too, when some MLAs and their supporters were allegedly being roughed up by the cops. Some police personnel and media persons also sustained injuries, media reports suggest.

For a news-starved media, any such incident comes in handy for overplaying. This has given some sort of political mileage to Congress, which has been floundering to regain its lost identity in Odisha since the past two decades.   

Some political observers, however, feel that what seemed to have lacked in the Congress action was prudent guidance from the new Congress state president Bhakta Charan Das, who may be enjoying the fact that under him the party has been able to garner some political mileage, but for the “wrong reasons”.

The show of Congress protest would have been more acceptable to the public if it had been on the streets, say critics.

In a recent press meet, Congress spokesperson from Delhi, Supriya Shrinate, tried her best to introduce some substance to the actions of the Congress MLAs and workers going “hammer and tongs” against the BJP government.

But, overall, the lack of guidance from the Congress high command to be selective on issues when matters related to people on the ground, such as inflation, employment and others, demanded more attention, was noticeable.

BJP Preferred Arrogance to Restraint

Political observers also feel that the ruling BJP could have exercised some restraint by initiating talks across the table than being so “clinically tough”, leading to actions such as suspension, detention etc. 

It appears the BJP was in ‘His Master's Voice’ mode and was acting as per diktats from Delhi.  

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s abrupt cancellation of his scheduled visit to Odisha citing some organisational issues indicates unease due to Congress's belligerent stance. 

Notably, during this “chaos”, the Biju Janata Dal’s “soft pedalling” can be construed as schisms in the Opposition in Odisha, lending an avoidable upper hand to Congress.

The writer is a freelancer based in Odisha. The views are personal.