Padampur witnesses tough BJD-BJP tussle
Very shockingly in India, most of the public goods are made accessible to the poor only. This is where the crooked politician fits in so well. The poor do not have the money to buy public services they are entitled to, but they have the most precious vote that the politicians crave to grab. The system makes corruption possible because most of the politicians are rogues and skilled to twist the bureaucracy to creak so as to organise doles of multiple kinds for their perpetually-impoverished constituents. The poor believes the doles and freebies were not their due but huge-hearted gift from the politicians.
In India, perhaps like in most of the poor and developing countries, the poor and the underprivileged are made to believe that they need politicians always to get any jobs and public services. They have no way to know that these crooked beings have only mastered the skills of arm-twisting businessmen who are invariably intimidated to provide from his hard-earned riches believing that without the politicians’ support and patronage, business would sink. In big deal cases, businessmen do need the crooked politicians to get public resources and contracts cheaply. So jointly, they form unseen cartels to extort money from countless private sources.
Strangely, until now no statesmanlike politician has ever suggested ‘plain cash' would be far more useful and empowering than material stuff that the poor sell away the much-needed cash that gives them immense freedom of choice and power especially during emergency.
So, the Rupee-1 rice dole in India heavily costing the public exchequer goes waste as the unscrupulous traders buy off the grains for as high as 15 rupees a kg to sell at Rs 20, which is an extremely high profit proposition. Pinhead thinkers and planners in most governments keep revelling over the absolutely impractical, unwise, irrelevant arrangement of stuff dole by way of freebies. The object of improving the quality of life of the poor, thus, never gets fulfilled. But the vote banks swell in favour of the dole masters.
There is enough evidence to suggest that our politicians absolutely lack the will to even try solving some of the most pressing problems. Most of them have successfully hacked the code of Indian democracy: they know what it takes to win votes. They know too well that low-hanging fruits like freebies and election-time largesse in the form of announcement of new schools, roads, bridges and hospitals are enough to win elections. So, why bother about systemic and long-term changes that would usher in true, lasting development thereby improving the quality of life of all!
There is another sinister reason for politicians preserving the status quo. Inadequacy of public goods allows them to exercise discretionary power over access. Politicians decide who gets admission to a reputed school or college or a hospital bed. Outside of the urban locations, they decide how soon one gets an electricity connection or a hand pump installed or even an FIR getting registered and influencing the police in what direction the investigation should take.
Odisha is in the high-voltage preparation of the Padampur by-election. The BJP got IT raids conducted on staunch BJD supporters, mostly affluent entrepreneurs, on a mess-up move believing voters would turn faces away from the BJD. And the BJD numbskulls organised a revengeful counter-raid by the GST officials on BJP businessmen. This grave blunder has caused the biggest-ever setback to the ethical Naveen Patnaik administration.
By the time the Dhamnagar by-poll had been declared, a few of the self-styled BJD strategists took the whole world for granted and kept spreading the message that all was so well and victory, their birthright, was already in the pocket. This arrogance and countless irritating approaches to wooing the voters caused a fall with a loud ‘thud'. The think tank or whoever convinced the otherwise invincible Chief Minister to declare that Dhamnagar's development was his exclusive responsibility, has done to the State unforgivable disservice. A Chief Minister, like the Speaker of a legislature, has no business to make such public promises simply because the whole State is his responsibility, not any small specific political constituency. The local MLA candidate can make such loose talk and may get away, though. But the boss, unless he is the local candidate himself, can never make such promises. Further, by-elections should not witness any chunk of government machinery crowding out there on a hyperactive mode for that shows weakness, not strength. And people did not like the overconfidence that the BJD honchos displayed rather vulgarly in Dhamnagar.
The Odisha BJP outfit is a deplorably horrible one. Not a single soul has any worth in the public perception. So, they borrowed any number of biggies from the national arena and made them scream both sense and more nonsense. The national body is buddy-buddy with Naveen Patnaik. Prime Minister Modi and Naveen have great respect for each other and together doing so much for the distressed communities and national pride. But some garbage guys of BJP and a few rascals of BJD have let the people down. Just before voting, when the rivalry heat is high, the BJP conducts Income Tax raids on BJD followers in Padampur, which obviously a mean way of trying to woo people away from BJD affiliation. As the blood of people was beginning to boil out of disgust and anger, some BJD rogues advised the boss to let GST authorities conduct raids on BJP supporters, all on equal sudden as BJP did.
The BJD was of course poised for victory as electoral analysis indicated until the stupid IT raids on BJD creatures. But the GST fiasco has dampened the prospects just a bit. The BJD has only to begin to pray to the Almighty for victory with a respectable margin. The BJP may win Padampur by chance with perhaps a slender margin.