After its failure to elect a candidate of its choice for the post of Nuapada Zilla Parishad President, the BJD is going to face a similar debacle in the election for the post of ZP Vice-President going to be held on Saturday.
The suspension of BJD district president Prasanna Padhi and tribal leader Bhanupratap Singh Majhi from the party has not created any impact on the rebel members, who are all set to elect Bhanupratap Majhi for the ZP Vice-President post with the support of Congress members.
The BJD State leadership is learnt to have made a last-moment effort to get support of the suspended leader Padhi for a compromise, which didn’t yield any result. People here are expecting suspension of a few more party members including Namita Pradhan, who got support of the Congress members to bargain with the BJD and won the ZP President post.
While common people are least concerned about who is elected the ZP President or Vice-President, intellectuals and people loyal to the BJD are considering the defection of members as a bad trend for the party. “People voted for a party and not to an individual, but the elected members changing parties have deceived the voters,” they argue.
But many people do not take it the same serious way. “It is a question of morality which does not fit into the present-day politics,” they say. “You cannot expect a person to be so much ideal after spending crores to win,” they maintain.
But the current development shows that the BJD is breaking from within. “It is the law of nature; when outside forces fail to destroy a despotic system, the destruction starts from inside, from the epicentre of that system,” said a political observer.