With the ruling BJD now eyeing on the impending panchayat polls, it must remember what John Arbuthnot once had cautioned, "A political party would die at last of swallowing its own lies (if one ignore facts)".
Interestingly, the dictum rings an alarm bell for the ruling party when it in over enthusiasm hyping up its campaign on Polavaram and Mahanadi and, thereby, conveying it to all that it is exactly toeing the description of James Robinson in his work The Human Comedy, where he said "political campaigns are designedly made into 'emotional orgies' which endeavour to distract attention from the real issues involved, and by this they actually paralyse what slight powers of cerebration a voter can normally muster".
But a calculative BJP seems throwing a spanner into BJD's 'emotional orgies' build up on Polavaram, when Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu very subtly hinted that there is no stay enforced by the Supreme Court on fund devolution to Polavaram. The BJD has been beating its chest on Centre's anti-Odisha attitude of declaring the project a national project, when the matter is subjudice in Supreme Court.
For political watchers, BJP's campaign line on Polavaram looks like to be taking the fight to BJD camp when it would hit the ground by picking the line where Venkaiah left. "It is utter failure of the Naveen-led BJD Government on Polavaram where the party failed to put up convincing facts before the SC bench to grant a stay in State's favour. BJD is more interested in playing politics than serving to State's interest," charged State BJP President Basant Panda.
Another instance of pricking BJD's 'emotional orgies' is visible on Mahanadi imbroglio, where throwing his hat in the ring post BJD's taunt of not taking up Odisha's cause with Central Ministers, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan took the issue with Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati, and with Centre convening both Governments to the talking table. It appears BJP has stopped BJD in hijacking the imbroglio to a high emotional battle. The result: BJD has to ground its agitation plans on Mahanadi for the time being.
On a contrary plane, State BJP is working hard to weaken the BJD brick by brick. In accordance with a great saying, political leader is one who sees light at the end of the tunnel, Union Minister Pradhan sees 'light' for BJP in State through the 'Ujawala scheme'. With free lPGs, this comes as a potent weapon to wean BJD's women vote bank, which the BJD has built via SHG movement. The effect: Sensing the trouble, BJD has been rattled and the turmoil over Ujawala implementation here is evident.
BJP's SWIFT (Students (unemployed), Women, Indignant (anti-incumbent voters), Farmers and Tribals) strategy on work to dethrone BJD gets evident when Pradhan launched a tirade against State's 'Teacher-On-Call' scheme quite vigorously along with Nagada, Dana Majhi and Gumudumaha.