In an one-upmanship show when parties on either side of divide make a rush to mine ‘political jackpot’ from muddies of river Mahanadi, what is forgotten in the melee is the famous adage of John Wycliffe on ‘political leadership’ that says, “The higher the monkey climbs, the more he shows his tail.”
Interestingly, the ruling BJD first fell hostage to this ‘saying’, because, when in politics it is taboo to confuse ‘power’ with ‘greatness’, BJD, despite in power for over a decade and a half, not only broke the taboo when it decided to go solo to grab the ‘Mahanadi trademark’ on its vest but on a platter also put the ‘leadership crown’ for sale.
After all, the political cannon speaks of how the first responsibility of ‘leadership’ is to define the ‘reality’, and the last to say is ‘thank you’. It seems this is where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik faltered, and in a role-reversal, leader of Opposition (lOP) Narasingha Mishra walked away with the ‘crown’.
For political watchers, who were thinking that Chief Minister is leading the State, the dismay they have woken up to is how CM Patnaik was being led by BJD’s new-age Kautaliyas, whose machinations of portraying up as a perfect gullible victim on Mahanadi to National parties’ (BJP and Congress) machinations, just got skidded off bringing none other than the CM on the firing line of the opposition parties, whom they always love to hound upon.
Overzealous in climbing up ‘high’ to partake the ‘electoral nectar’, the BJD squandered a ‘Mahanadi’ (river) of opportunity to lead the State, and in due course left its chinks on dubious machinations only to be exposed by none other than its opponents. Because, in politics, leadership is action, not position.
While the BJD squandered the ‘leadership’ opportunity, it virtually looks like a scramble to grab the ‘leadership’ in Congress, where some leaders look hell bent on rewriting a popular saying on one another as “You’re the leader by default, only because a party cannot allow a vacuum”.
The problem in Congress is, unlike the BJD and the BJP, high command for quite some time is picking up a State president who is not an elected member of the State Assembly. This is where the tussle in Congress brews up. While the PCC president is the ultimate torchbearer as he is the army general, but when the battle is fought on floors of Assembly, the lOP becomes the general. Henry Miller’s wisdom words “The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way” rings true for the squabbling State Congress.