It is the pitiable lack of leadership which is responsible for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ignoble debacle in the panchayat elections in the State. The party has even begun virtually losing its position to the Congress as the State’s second opposition force.
The BJP’s State leadership has miserably failed to inspire the party’s rank and file. And its national leaders seem to have completely ignored the party’s interests in the State.
The most interesting part of the story is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s periodic praise of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for the latter’s record of governance. Modi even made pro-Patnaik remarks in a speech in Parliament just on the eve of the panchayat polls.
In such a situation, imagine the public perception of the BJP in Odisha when its State leaders were exhorting party workers to convince people about the Modi Government’s welfare measures for them and the Patnaik regime’s myriad “failures”!
The State leaders could not obviously afford to publicly express their sense of frustration over the Modi-Patnaik bonhomie, but they licked their wounds behind doors. Their lofty hope of the “Modi magic” helping the party at the polls boomeranged!
The BJP high command’s strange approach towards Odisha was also reflected from no State leader being projected to head the poll campaign. While Dharmendra Pradhan was assigned for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, another Union Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and charismatic Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi were conspicuous by their absence in the campaigning for the panchayat elections.
The party’s national leadership may now consider replacement of State president Samir Mohanty, but that would hardly improve the party’s fate here as long as Modi continues with his indulgence towards Patnaik.