BJD’S QUISlING SUPPORT FOR THE lAND ACQUISITION BIll
After months of strident ranting against the land Acquisition Bill, the BJD’s walkout in the lok Sabha ahead of voting on it effectively meant the party’s quisling support for the Modi Government’s anti-farmer law. If that line is followed in the Rajya Sabha where the NDA is in hopeless minority, the BJD’s secret support for the Bill while still posturing about its pro-farmer image will go down as its first act of double-dealing and deception since its formation a dozen and half years ago. Party supremo Naveen Patnaik’s recent rendezvous with BJP heavyweights under the fig leaf of pursuing development matters was essentially to cut the deal over what each side can do for the other. The deal was: The Centre keeps its loyal hound CBI on a leash and the BJD abstains from voting. lest anything will go wrong, Patnaik was in Delhi to personally ensure its smooth implementation. Who says he is lily-white in the unremitting darkness of venal politicsIJ He has realised his party’s parliamentary strength is underperforming and it is high time to put it to good use. And what better way to start than harnessing it to safeguard his personal and political interestsIJ
OPTICS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE ISSUE
In a first of its kind in our living memory, serious aspersions were cast on a senior bureaucrat’s personal life on the floor of the Assembly. The swashbuckling accuser baulked at naming the bureaucrat, but news reports left nothing much to imagination. Media picked up the story like a bone thrown at a dog. So, much prominence was given to the story that one wondered if the great interests of the State and its people were actually involved in the love affair between a man and a woman or the personal bickering between a husband and his wife. The issue itself is secondary to the optics of the flamboyant manner in which it was raised in a high-profile manner. For a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The self-attributed sense of justice that agitated the alpha member to draw the House attention to the bureaucrat’s suffering but well-placed wife should have been better deployed for those who live below the horizon without any redress. But he knows how to write the headlines for his stories, never mind the ghastly filth they leave in their trail. Quite simply, his outrage was wholly manufactured for political effect. Did the aggrieved wife approach him to take up the cudgels on her behalfIJ If not, why does the accuser fancy that his job as people’s representative entails being a bit of nosy parkerIJ Not knowing the full facts of the case, free-floating character assassination can only be a pernicious act totally unconnected with the real issue. When the accused can’t defend himself in the House, he really becomes a helpless victim of the accuser’s sadistic fantasy. I think we are all brought up in a culture of playing the ball, not the man and certainly not the man’s personal life. It is well said that one’s right to swing his arm ends where the other man’s nose begins. If it is open season on private matters, life will be utterly diminished. It is time we focus on real issues and not go bananas.
A lETTER OF RECOMMENDATION IS A COST-FREE WAY TO PlEASE All
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s letter to Union Human Resources Minister Smriti Irani recommending Sambalpur as the site for the IIM should Centre consider relaxation of norms such as availability of an airport in close proximity is a political ploy whose sole purpose is to convince the people of western Odisha that he has their interest close to his heart. He had written a similar recommendatory letter in September 2013 to the UPA Government’s law Minister Kapil Sibal for establishment of two High Court Benches in western and southern Odisha when the State elections were barely six months away. He knew from the beginning that his proposal must carry the approval of the State’s High Court, but he didn’t bother to follow the required procedure. Clever Sibal promptly threw the ball back in Patnaik’s court by asking him to get the High Court’s concurrence. Since then, the proposal has been resting in peace. The same fate awaits Patnaik’s recommendation for the Sambalpur IIM. His strategy is: Just write a letter of recommendation and keep quiet. Deflecting responsibility is an art Patnaik is well-versed with. Whenever he sees an opportunity to kill several birds with just one stone, he is way ahead of others in exploiting it.
CAN BJP PRESIDENT AMIT SHAH TURN BASE METAl TO GOlDIJ
Nomination of as many as six leaders from Odisha to the BJP’s national executive, far north of all expectations, is a clear pointer to the importance president Amit Shah attaches to the party’s revival in the State. Over the years, the party’s strength has been steadily declining in the State. In the 2000 Assembly elections, the BJP won an impressive 38 seats and shared power in a coalition Government with the BJD. But that number reduced to 32 in the 2004 elections. Before the 2009 elections, BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik unerringly sensed the BJP’s sharply declining popularity and unilaterally broke the electoral alliance. An unprepared BJP, used to ride piggyback on Patnaik’s popularity, got the shock of its life when it was reduced to an insignificant rump of just six. The position slightly improved, just like dead cat bounce, to 10 in the 2014 elections. But the party is still in the doldrums. Emergence of Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Ministers in the Modi Government has rekindled the party’s hopes in the State. Amit Shah expects the Oram-Pradhan duo to be the locomotive to haul the BJP train. Giving such large representation in the national executive is Shah’s strategic move to take on the BJD in the next elections. He has blown the starting whistle and the race is now on. But barring the two Ministers, the other four worthies catapulted to the higher echelons are such a tired and tattered lot that one wonders if they can flex their ageing and atrophied muscles to checkmate the Patnaik juggernaut now rumbling triumphantly in the electoral battlefields at all levels.
(saratpattanayak@hotmail.com (M) 9437962121)