Addressing booth organisers’ meeting of the party for Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts on Tuesday at Ambapua at Brahmapur, BJP national president Amit Shah gave a call to the party cadres to work dedicatedly at the booth levels to overthrow the BJD Government in Odisha and secure a two-thirds majority with120 seats in the forthcoming 2019 Assembly polls.
Ganjam, known to be the den of the BJD where the party has bagged all Assembly seats in last polls and from which Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik represents, the visit of Shah is considered as the beginning of the electioneering exercise of the BJP in the district.
Shah educated the cadres how the Modi Government has significantly increased the financial assistance to Odisha since 2014 but the State Government is not able to properly spend it.
In a new approach, he put the blame of underdevelopment of the State on both the Congress and the BJD, whom he described as the rulers since Independence. To touch the emotional chord of the Ganjam people, where migration is high, Shah criticised the BJD Government for not creating local employment for the migrant youths.
By setting a two-third majority target for the BJP, Shah has silenced the speculations of a BJD-BJP alliance for 2019. The speculation has sustained in Odisha as CM Patnaik has been extending support in a series of cases to the ruling the NDA Government at the Center since 2014 , starting from the demonetisation and GST to the forthcoming President election. Shah has set the “election-plank” as “Vikas .”
looking at the history of the Brahmpur lok Sabha constituency, it was a known Congress fort historically. The BJP had taken away the lok Sabha seat from the Congress in 2000 lS poll, through the BJD-BJP alliance. However, the Congress re-occupied the seat in 2004 poll.
Since 2009, the BJD has been occupying the lok Sabha seat. The BJD has consolidated its position by weakening systematically the left and the Congress, the two dominant forces of the district. The BJD’s growth also has decimated the BJP.
Since the BJP was once in power in the Constituency and the Hindu-community of the district had shown greater participation during the Ram Mandir campaign of the 90s, the BJP perhaps is hopeful for a recovery of its lost Parliament seat. The party is seen adopting a combined strategy of reviving its old base and ideology, developing a new set of leaders by co-opting them from other parties or introducing new ones, popularising the Modi Mantra and strongly criticizing the BJD for failing to develop the condition of the people of the district. The high attendance of the youths in the meeting indicates a public tempo for the change of guard. The BJP knows that it can move faster into south Odisha, only by building a high pitch environment in Brahmapur, which is known as the gateway of south Odisha and it did so.
In the Brahmapur lok Sabha constituency, the BJP has opened its doors to the dissidents of the BJD, the Congress and the Communists. The collapse of the State Congress is pushing the Congress leaders towards the BJP as the BJD is saturated mostly. One can argue that the situation will enable the BJP to occupy the 2nd place in the poll scene in case of the decimation of the Congress but shall not affect the No.1 status of the BJD.
But the anti-incumbency dose of the ruling BJD MlAs could bring disaster to the BJD in certain Assembly segments and more so in the
lok Sabha segment if the Modi-effect continues in 2019. The minority, who are mostly the Christians, shall be divided. While the Dalit Christians shall be divided in their support to the Congress and the BJD and the tribal Christians shall be divided among the BJP, the BJD and the Congress.
The Telugu community, which is a dominant segment in the Brahmapur lok Sabha constituency, will be seen divided too between the BJD and the BJP. If the BJP succeeds in consolidating the Hindu-Odia votes, it can easily occupy the Brahmapur lok Sabha seat in 2019.
However, the target of120 seats, which is 12 times the exiting MlA strength of the BJP, appears to be an unrealistic target now, unless backed up by area specific social re-engineering and severe BJD-weakening strategies.