Just a few days ago, BJD supporters got the shock of their life when the organising leader of the invincible party declared in the open that there are nearly 10,000 aspirants for 147 legislator seats. This sounds mad as 68 individuals per Assembly seat are hopeful about grabbing a ticket. So, the rest 67 disgruntled guys and girls are likely to revolt unless they have been indoctrinated soundly to stand by the choice of the high command. Interestingly, for good reasons, the BJD has no effective high command which is the party working committee. Naveen Patnaik runs the outfit as a highly adorable supremo only to keep the self-serving political crooks under total control. Naveen, with the support of his trusted aides, mostly smart, highly-skilled bureaucrats, ensures that no party fellow errs on the moral front.
Former and serving bureaucrats have come and gone, the latest being the most trusted VK Pandian, who gave up the coveted job to turn a fulltime politician, is now the de facto highest decision maker in all critical matters including choosing candidates for elections. VK has established a failsafe machinery to keep watch on all potential candidates- particularly those eyeing berths in the State Assembly. He has employed top class survey outfits which go deep into the aspiring candidates’ credentials and antecedents. VK and his close team would leave nothing to chance while assessing candidates' winnability. 2024 is a sensitive year as there is much talk of a BJP-BJD pact that will facilitate saffron victory for the Centre and Naveen victory for the State. Modi and Naveen respect each other so much as never to disturb one another on power-sharing issues. It is not a secret that Naveen gifted a Rajya Sabha seat to Ashwini Vaishnaw who perhaps could not organise a Lok Sabha constituency to battle from. Thus, the happy deal was struck like the last time to have Vaishnaw as an Odisha political representative bringing into the State great public goods. Ashwini is of course doing a commendable job for both Modi and Naveen. Consequently, the people of Odisha are benefitting from his projects just too well.
After VK turned a politician, he took complete command over the BJD party affairs. The reason is simple and clear. He slogs like mad day in and day out to keep the BJD afloat in extreme safety. He has become one of the best poll strategists in India by using latest information technology and a superbly chosen workforce. When he was a plain bureaucrat, Naveen passed instructions on his advice. Now even if he is technically number two in the fold, he is the de facto boss as Naveen desires him to be so. All was so immensely well until recent times. But now that VK is boss, some of the spineless, disgruntled ticket-rejects are clandestinely planning to cause damage to the party so as to have it lose more seats than imagined. The pulse of the people hasn’t changed much though. The organising official of the BJD may have said things in a lighter mood about 68 aspirants per single Assembly seat. But a methodical survey indicates the dejected ones will try their best to cause fall of the party somehow by switching loyalty or by internal sabotage.
The party headed practically by VK has to strictly go by the survey findings and not by the huge amount of money some wealthy ones dish out for tickets or for funding candidates pitted in close by constituencies.
Strangely, for the first time in Odisha, ordinary voters are going to eat up the money and cast vote as per personal choice. Twenty per cent of standard voters are expressing preference for change. For all this, the 2024 elections are not going to be absolute cakewalk for the BJD; nor surely for the Lok Sabha seats. The saffron gang is likely to grab 12-16 seats for which the BJD biggies are least bothered. On the contrary, they would like to keep the Modi-Shah duo happy in return for maximum seats given away to Naveen in the State Assembly. Ashwini will keep playing the good-to-all go-between until 2029.
The precarious condition of the Odisha State BJP leaders is difficult to describe in words. They have been screaming hoarse against the BJD blunders in vain, nay shamelessly so as the central bosses necessarily offend them to dampen spirit by spending precious time in joyfully close-door meetings with the local adversaries against whom the hapless local saffron midgets have been consuming all their life's stored energy to buy people’s hearts. The little public support that they manage to garner gets tossed to the garbage yard as their national leaders do not find it fit to discuss or spill in public the sins of the enemy camp while interacting with the party guys or responding to the media. Aparajita Sarangi today, though safe in her own constituency, is actually a lone ranger as the State party front-liners are by now a fast-vanishing tribe.
All the same, the immensely successful BJD has unknowingly groomed a few self-destroying, arrogantly wicked elements who are likely to ditch the honchos in good time during elections. Western and northern Odisha voters have lost the initial zeal to support the BJD as of yore, so it seems. The coastal region is relatively safe, most so Cuttack. But Puri will witness the fiercest parliamentary battle as Sambit Patra has been buying hearts for over four and a half years. The constituency needs a local heavyweight, a son of the soil, with no baggage to give a fitting fight.
The Naveen team will not shed a single drop of tear if Ashwini Vaishnaw's fraternity wins most berths in the Lok Sabha. They will only celebrate local Assembly victory, which is very likely unless the invisible rebels show up at the last moment to cause loss and setback by systematically planning internal sabotage.
VK’s team better beware from now as there is soft murmur already among the ones who feel ignored! The survey findings should be the sole criterion for selection of candidates. Personal preferences or bulging money bags of individuals should never be the reason for choosing any candidate.
