A massive political churning is now taking place in Cuttack where leaders, activists, supporters and sympathisers of different political parties are switching their allegiances ahead of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) elections on February 6.
While each of the three major political parties, the BJD, the Congress and the BJP, are being affected and also benefitted by such change of loyalty among activists, much ado is now being made about a handful of Muslim defectors.
It’s not voters alone, who change their party preferences from time to time, but prominent Muslim leaders also become turncoats according to the need of the hour. Muslim leader and former Minister Mustafiz Ahmed of the city had also joined the Congress after he was twice elected from the city Assembly constituency on the Janata Party and later Janata Dal tickets.
The city has over 10 per cent Muslim voters, and the city has never witnessed a polarisation of votes on account of religion or caste ever. Muslims have been seen rallying behind the Congress and the BJD. Even the saffron party BJP too has many Muslim sympathisers.
“But this time, it appears that all the prominent political parties are in a race to allure the Muslims as if the voters of this community are going to be a deciding factor in the civic body elections,” says advocate Khirod Chandra Rout, asserting that the political parties are making unnecessary hype over the issue.
“Politics in Odisha is completely different from many other States. Odia voters never vote on the basis of caste, creed or religion,” says former naval aviator Debi Prasad Padhy, who has been closely watching the elections in the State for over three decades now.
Neither the voters in Odisha show any allegiance on the basis of caste or religion nor do the political parties or their leaders try to exploit the same, Padhy, a current educationist, observes. He also feels that for this particular character of Odia voters, political violence in the State is the minimum.