After BJD rebel and Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) president Pyarimohan Mohapatra turned a persona non grata for most of the parties he had hoped to forge an alliance to throw a tough challenge to the BJD, but he has really been pushed to the edge.
The top leaders in the BJP, Samata Kranti Dal, Utkal Bharat and Aama Odisha have turned down his offer for a pact and a united fight to see that the BJD led by Naveen Patnaik bites the dust. His woes were further compounded after his close confidants like Amiya Pandab, Sarat Mishra and a few others deserted him. While Pandab launched a scathing attack on Mohapatra for running the party like an autocrat, others who quit the OJM have not minced any word against the bureaucrat-turned politician.
The BJP central leaders were, however, pressing for a coalition of the State unit with the fringe parties, including Mohapatra’s OJM, but while the State unit leaders were totally averse to a pact with Mohapatra, the reluctance of the other parties to demand more seats than the BJP agreed to finally spoiled the chances for a grand alliance of the non-BJD and non-Congress forces in the State.
Mohapatra, who was at the helm of affairs in the BJD ticket distribution during the 2009 polls and a person key to making or marring the career of the politicians, has now become virtually an untouchable, telling one of the saddest tales in the rise and fall of a politician.
He is not acceptable to the BJP because of his role in the break-up of the BJP-BJD alliance. He was at the forefront to take the decision to ditch the partner and contest the 2009 polls all alone by the BJD. And that served a turning point in the political future of BJD and the BJP. While the former gained immensely and subsequently continued to maintain its winning spree, the latter only suffered humiliating drubbings. After the break-up and dismal performance of the State BJP in the 2009 elections, a message went straight to the public that the BJP did not have any strength of its own in the 1999 and 2004 polls and was simply basking in the glory of its partner, BJD. How can a party that suffered so heavily afford to have an understanding with the same man who was the key architect behind its fallIJ Besides, the BJP has a few leaders like Dilip Ray and Bijay Mohapatra who left the BJD allegedly owing to the machinations of Mohapatra. These leaders can never trust Mohapatra again and hence, were against a tie-up with the OJM.
Samata Kranti Dal chief and former Union Minister Braja Tripathy too is a victim of Mohapatra’s trickery. He had to quit BJD after he felt him ill at ease with the top leadership. So he is not for a pact with Mohapatra either. Similarly, Aama Odisha chief Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and Utkal Bharat chief Kharabela Swain too sought to keep Mohapatra at arm’s length given his track record.
Mohapatra, who used to be the brain of BJD till 2012 and a high profile politician, has few takers now. His unceremonious exit from the BJD lent him a negative image of a ‘betrayer’ or ‘back stabber’ as BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik described him following the aborted coup on May 29, 2012. Mohapatra no doubt kept defending that he was not hatching any coup, rather it was a usual meeting of the party functionaries at his residence, but few bought the story.
No doubt after his ouster from the BJD, he showed his strength by floating a new front and gravitating to his side a section of BJD leaders and workers. But his greatest failure has been that he could not prove that he was innocent of the charge leveled against him as yet.