CAPITAlNOTES

IS THERE A CURE FOR PRADEEP MAHARATHY’S ACUTE ATTENTION-DEFICIT DISORDERIJ  

For Minister Pradeep Maharathy, controversy is better late than never. For quite some time, he had not been in the news for his trademark acts of clowning around in the public meetings. But he more than compensated it by choosing the high-profile National Highway inauguration function at Pipli last week. He not only sat on the dais with his party flag wrapped around his neck but taunted the BJP leaders including the Union Cabinet Minister Nitin Gadkari for attempting to ignore him in the advertisement for the function. “Omitting my name will cost the Centre dear,” he thundered. That was like a red rag to a bull. Scores of BJP activists shouted against him. But Maharathy’s storm-troopers, no slouch at slogan shouting, were more than a match for them. For a moment, it looked like it was the BJD’s payback for BJP workers’ shouting against Naveen Patnaik at the Prime Minister’s function in Rourkela in April this year. Even without his terrorising marauders Maharathy’s thickset body, bulldog-like looks and growly voice from his ever-eruptive mouth were quite intimidating to the BJP leaders present on the dais. Not for nothing Patnaik has still retained him in the Cabinet despite his many acts of buffoonery. Important public functions excite him to go overboard. He simply can’t keep his impulsive thoughts to himself. It is beyond him.              

JAGANNATH SANSKRUTI SURAKSHA YATRA: A JOURNEY WITHOUT A ClEAR DESTINATION

The BJP’s week-long Jagannath Sanskruti Suraksha Yatra was probably based on the assumption that everyone outraged by the dreadful happenings over Brahma Parivartan would join the Yatra to make it a success. That thinking is an offshoot from the dogma of some diehard ideologues who extrapolate that everyone who goes to a temple is a potential member of the party. The masterminds behind the Yatra set about escalating anger over the Brahma Parivartan fiasco to make it a people’s movement. They formulated all kinds of frightening slogans to whip up fury. Catchphrases like Brahma Hatya and Brahma Chori were coined to enrage the people and exhort them to join the Dharma Yuddha. Having failed in all its attempts to dent Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s popularity, the BJP fancies it has finally got the ‘Brahmastra’ to finish him off. One wonders if it will be the Brahmastra of the kind Pyarimohan Mohapatra has been using against Patnaik for as long as one can remember. Ask Mohapatra about their effectiveness.

DIlIP RAY: A WIlD CARD IN lEADERSHIP RACE

One does not see Dilip Ray among the BJP’s State leaders who hang around the party’s Central Ministers coming to the city quite often these days. Why does he not come out from his bespoke hideout in Rourkela to rub shoulders with the high and mighty of the partyIJ His colleagues trip over each other at the airport to catch the top leaders’ attention like star-struck teenage girls at the chance to grab their hero’s hands. He is also never seen among the State leaders holding so many Press conferences, walking so often to the Raj Bhavan and staging so many protest marches in the city. Even in the week-long Jagannath Sanskruti Suraksha Yatra, Ray was conspicuous by his absence. On the other hand, one reads about Ray meeting the Prime Minister solo and pleading with him for an airport in Rourkela, a second bridge over the Brahmani, a medical college for the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) and more Central assistance for Nabakalebar. He last met Prime Minister Modi to draw his attention to the wretched condition of roads in Puri, the urgent need for building sanitation infrastructure and rapid completion of  road and rail expansion to the town. I can’t imagine anyone of the present State leaders meeting the Prime Minister to draw his attention to the development needs of the State. Depending on your perception, Ray is either a lone wolf pursuing his own political ambition or an icon of progressivism. But given his track record of bloody-minded pursuit of  the development projects many of which are now coming to fruition, he appears to be a leader with a difference in a ‘party with a difference’IJ His development-rooted agenda stands in sharp contrast to the power politics of the present crop of plain vanilla politicians. He is visible where visibility matters in the State’s interest. He is the only artist among the vast multitude of artisans in the party. If my crystal ball is not lying to me and given Modi’s penchant for picking up unheralded candidates for Chief Ministership, Ray appears to be the presumptive choice for the party’s leadership if it gets majority in the next election. He alone has that special X factor.  

BJP’S BIFOCAl POlITICAl POlICY FOR ODISHA: ONE lENS FOR NEAR AND THE OTHER FOR DISTANT OBJECTIVE

No less a personage than the Union Cabinet Minister Nitin Gadkari has let the cat out of the bag. Gadkari himself has termed his unscheduled meeting with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as ‘confidential’ and its contents not meant for public consumption. Anyone who denies the BJD-BJP deal is either a simpleton or a BJD spokesman. Before Gadkari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised Patnaik publicly and party president Amit Shah had scrupulously refrained from criticising him openly. But the BJP is a political party and its raison d’être is assumption of power. The top BJP leadership has, therefore, developed a bifocal policy for Odisha: one lens to see the near objectives and the other to see the distant ones. Right now, they are using the lens for the near vision because they immediately need Patnaik’s votes in the Parliament to pass many of their pet Bills. But, in course of time, they have to go for their long-term objectives. And that objective is annexation of Odisha to their expanding empire. In politics, the love affair between two rival political parties follows the same love affair that a butcher has for his pig. It is only the ignoramuses in the party’s local leadership who don’t understand their Central leadership’s bifocal political policy for the State.          

(saratpattanayak@hotmail.com (M) 9437962121)