Credible alternative still a far cry
A three-day State BJP meeting at Puri that concluded on Sunday had a lot of brainstorming over different issues, including the cause of the poor performance of the party vis-à-vis the landslide victory of the BJD for a fourth consecutive term.
The top brass wondered how the electorate of the State voted the BJD to power despite the fact that it was corrupt out and out.
The question now is are the voters of the State quite happy with the Naveen Patnaik Government and, hence, very contentedly came forward to support it, or is it that their options were limited and they found the regional party to be the best despite all its shortcomingsIJ
One way or the other, it is the second proposition than the first that decided to a considerable extent the political fate of the State this time.
The State is now deficient of an alternative to the ruling party. With the State Congress beset with intraparty feuds and double standards and the State BJP rather frail and short of a dynamic leadership, the voters probably had the BJD as the lone choice.
Before the last polls, there were lots of incidents, including a series of rape and women harassment cases and scams that should change the people’s mood and queer the pitch for the BJD, but nothing of the sort happened.
No doubt, the BJD did much to save its face and also resorted to several tactics to catch the votes at the nick of time. Nevertheless, had the Opposition properly highlighted the ruling party’s lapses and made people believe what they said, they wouldsurely have performed better.
Instead of hammering out on the weakness of the BJD, they themselves laid bare their own vulnerability by defecting from their parties and joining the BJD.
The massive jumps from the Congress and BJP to the BJD led to a fast loss of the credibility of the leaders and their parent parties.
With massive defections while the Congress had lost the battle before it was to be fought, the BJP remained over confident and made a wrong estimate of the impact of the Modi factor on the polls.
Thanks to the wisdom of a few State leaders, the BJP let go a chance for a poll alliance though the Central leadership was in favour of it.
How much one wished it had gone for a new front and helped the electorate find a new option! The initiative for such a front was rather nipped in the bud.
The voters in Odisha are really in a fix sans an escape route from the current dispensation. The longest ruling party has proved to the mostcorrupt and has already begun to show its skin.
Scams, misrule, crimes and swindling are galore. A culture of freebies has rendered the State’s working populace idle and effeminate. Mindless favour shown to industries at the cost of the common people has led to rapid plunder of State’s raw material. Agriculture is at its lowest ebb.
Inflation has played havoc. Quality education is the prerogative of the well-to-do. An unbalanced growth model has forced the rural population to move to the urban towns and cities. Rampant corruption in the Government schemes makes them unworthy.
Regrettably, the Opposition is weak and does not stand up to the expectations of the people.