Odisha: Multi-Pronged Issues Dogging State BJP ‘Force’ Shah’s Visit in March-End

A multi-pronged leadership structure in Odisha’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) unit seems to have partially eclipsed the ‘double-engine’ government in the state.

Under the leadership of the Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in the last nine months, the saffron party has not been able to show the results expected of it despite a good mandate in its favour.

The state’s party structure has several leaders but each of them has his or her sphere of influence, which has created a situation when they have not been able to be seen as a united lot.

“Each of them (state BJP leaders) arrogate a misnomer of being so-called regional chieftains and that is the reason there is such an unspoken schism haunting their unity” Rabi Das, veteran political analyst in Odisha, told this writer.

None of these leaders wants to shed his or her foremanship, which is giving the jitters to BJP’s central leadership in New Delhi. This could be the pressing reason why Union Home Minister Amit Shah is coming here to smoothen the barbs as far possible, added Das.

Shah is scheduled to visit Odisha on March 24, reportedly to sort out “many unresolved issues” as regards the disarrayed organisational structure of the party, say sources.

In the midst of an atmosphere of political ambiguity, a senior BJP leader Jaynarayan Mishra raised the issue of  “geographic and  demographic imbalances”,  implying that the people of Western Odisha are “not happy” with Coastal Odisha’s “supremacy” as a power house of politics in the state.

Although the people of Western Odisha have been demanding separate statehood, called ‘Koshal’, so far the demand has not been able to gather enough steam.

The issue (raised by Mishra), in fact, rocked the ongoing Assembly session almost leading to fisticuffs in the Well of the house on Tuesday last.

Organisationally, BJP needs to do some quick soul- searching, else this issue of “disparity” becomes chronic, making it harder for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to placate his party’s disgruntled leaders. For Chief Minister Majhi, the task is threatening to getting insurmountable.

 No ‘Poster Boy’ Now  

Once the ‘poster boy’ of BJP in Odisha, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who cannot be denied the credit for helping the party become a force to reckon with in recent times, is today a “mellowed down leader”, giving rise to all kinds of rumours and speculation, at times even showing him in poor light.

Political analysts have talking about “the growing distance” between Pradhan and Majhi, although once it was believed that the latter was Pradhan’s political henchman. In contrast, Majhi’s sudden proximity to Modi indicates the “declining affinity” between Modi and Pradhan, if rumour mills are to be believed.

Since the past few months, nobody has seen Majhi and Pradhan in a single photo frame. Why? some analysts wonder.

Since over two months, the BJP in Odisha has not been able to elect (or select) a new state ppresident although the tenure of former state president Manmohan Samal has been over for long. Political grapevine would have us believe that Samal is hoping he would be made state president once more. But the irony is that he had miserably failed to win the last Assembly elections.            

There is speculation that all the “factions” in BJP, allegedly headed by Pradhan, Baijayant Panda, Aparajita Sarangi and Samal, are trying hard to have one of their loyalists to become the party’s state president.

 In the given scenario, Chief Minister Majhi looks helpless, sometimes nursing his wounds and making frequent visits to Delhi without any result, say political observers.

Although the district-level BJP presidents have been elected, except one, there is still no movement within the party for election of the state president.  

As regards the appointment of corporation heads, all 36 posts are lying vacant and no one knows why the delay.

As of now, BJP is in a “messy” state, where the left hand does not know what the right is doing, say political observers.

The writer is a freelancer based in Odisha.