It, indeed, created much mirth when senior BJP leader and spokesperson Bijay Mohapatra said the fall of Patna to the BJP would have no impact in Odisha for the party.
Mohapatra, like many of his party leaders, only exposed that they are not good at political arithmetic, and the BJP State unit in the present state of affairs by aiming to wrest power in the Odisha in the 2019 polls is after a wild goose chase.
A seasoned man in politics that Mohapatra is, his statement after the BJP’s ignominious defeat in the Bihar State Assembly polls was not forthright and a futile bid to save the image of the party.
It is no doubt that the Odisha BJP has been bolstered and come in a new avatar after the landslide victory of the party in the 2014 lok Sabha polls and has been stinging the ruling BJD on every lapses, but its stings are devoid of strength. More often than not, the party leaders, without little concern for strengthening the party’s own position, have been unduly critical of the BJD dispensation and training their guns at Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
If one of the prime reasons behind BJP’s defeat in Bihar was its failure to project a Chief Ministerial candidate or a State unit head of the party, the same problem cripples the Odisha BJP as well. Though the party has already formed its Government in the Centre for over a year, still neither the Central unit nor the State unit has been serious on the issue of propping up a State head. As a result, the unit has been running like a headless chicken with central focus missing on any particular leader. The question that the Bihar voters asked was who was BJP’s Chief Minister candidate vis-a-vis JDU coalition’s Nitish KumarIJ But they drew a blank and hence, voted massively for the JDU and its grand alliance partners. The same question also lurks in the mind of the Odisha people here though this issue has been skipped deliberately by the party. Besides, though the Odisha BJP president KV Singh Deo’s term is going to be over, the party seems not to have decided as yet on a leader for Sing Deo’s replacement. On the contrary, the people of the State are confused as to who enjoys highest command and respect among the BJP leaders in Odisha. The focus seems to be constantly veering around an array of leaders like KV Singh Deo, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram, among others.
While State BJP unit is headed by Singh Deo, he is shying away from many sensitive issues, letting other leaders, mostly Mohapatra, to keep the party’s stand in media. Singh Deo, therefore, fails to garb eyeballs while Mohapatra and a few leaders, who are media-savvy, take the centre stage.
Similarly, there seems to be a constant vying to be in the limelight by Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Whenever he speaks on any Odisha-centric issue, it seems he has the final say on the matter, while the other State leaders are just relegated to the edge.
like JDU’s Nitish Kumar, who enjoys the image of Bikash Purush in Bihar, BJD’s Naveen Patnaik too holds an image advantage. The corruption charges against his party leaders have not made any dent in it. Besides, he is the pivot of the party and despite not being media savvy his standpoint is made clear before the people by a band of spokespersons whose minds match and who are in perfect sync with themselves and party supremo. In such a context, the Odisha BJP has to find out a leader of clean image and big stature so that people of the State have an option.