In a recent national level “Desh ka Mood “ sample survey by ABP News-C Voters, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik has emerged as the most popular Chie Minister while 66 per cent of people of the country have expressed their happiness with the work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The people of Odisha have once again shown their strong liking for Naven Patnaik as Chief Minister and Modi as Prime Minister.
There was a similar trend in the 2019 general elections, during which Odisha voters to some extent gave a split verdict by preferring Patnaik as the Chief Minister for a fifth consecutive term with a 1-per cent increase in vote share and choosing Modi as the Prime Minister. Though one and a half years have passed since the elections and the corona pandemic has caused havoc in Odisha, the political positioning of Patnaik and Modi has remained unaltered. Both still reap the benefits of the TINA (there is no alternative) factor. Interestingly, though Modi is popular in the State, his BJP’s State leaders are not able to win the trust of the people.
The trend indicates that the cyclone Fani’s relief and rehab programmes, post-2019 development activities , the Covid-19 combat of the State Government, the activities of the BJD, the structure and function of the Ministry and the administration have been considered satisfactory by the public. It also shows that the people approved the anti-corruption action of BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik against his party MLA Pradeep Panigrahi, a senior forest officer and many other officers. The 2019 general election pushed the major opposition Congress party to the third position in the State, conceding it only nine Assemblies and one Lok Sabha seat. Since then, there has been no structural change in the Congress at both national and the State level.
Therefore, it is not a surprise to find no Congress leadership growing in the State to pose a challenge to the TINA factor of Naveen Patnaik during the one and a half years of post poll period. In contrast to the Congress’ downside trend, the BJP has grown after the 2019 general elections. It increased its seat tally from 10 Assembly seats to 23 and from 1 Lok Sabha seat to 8 and became the main Opposition party. Though the BJP’s ‘Mission-120’ Assembly seats failed miserably in 2019, the post-poll situation witnessed the emergence of several leaders in the BJP to grow as possible alternative s to the BJD supremo.
While the BJP cadres were rallying behind Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as their only CM candidate during the pre-poll days, they found many Chief Ministerial leaders after the poll such as Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi, party national vice-president Baijayant Panda and Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari. As Baijayant Panda got weakened after losing the Lok Sabha election, Suresh Pujari got confined to his constituency and Pratap Sarangi focused dedicatedly on his Ministry activities, Dharmendra Pradhan and Aparajita Sarangi became the two Chief Ministerial faces of the party in the cadres’ perception level though none is officially projected by the BJP. They too behaved as State leaders of the party.
Sometimes, the supporters of the two leaders have publicly expressed differences among them and engaged in conflict. This is despite that during the post-2019 period, the BJP raised many issues against the BJD and these two leaders criticised the State Governments time and again.
In spite of the opposition activities of the State BJP and the emergence of multiple BJP State leaders, the ABP-C Voters survey indicated the perpetuation of TINA factor for Naveen Patnaik. This situation is bound to worry the BJP and force the Chief Ministerial aspirants of the party to reflect on their leadership styles. There are two different State management models of the two national parties with strengths and weaknesses of each model. Sometimes, they declare their Chief Ministerial candidates for a State whether he is given the State unit chief portfolio or not.
At other time, they don’t declare their CM candidates before the general elections and give the party State president the limited task of organisation development. In the second scenario, the party cadres and the public keep guessing and chasing many CM candidates of the party till election. The second model is highly risky for the Chief Ministerial aspirants of the party as they have to build themselves from the ground and pass successfully the scrutiny of the party cadres and leaders. Since the BJP and the Congress have been choosing the second model for Odisha, the Chief Ministerial aspirants of both parties face a tough time to rise to the State leadership level as they have to give the poll performance test.
As a Chief Ministerial aspirant, Dharmendra Pradhan must be learning lessons from the failure of Mission 120 and move ahead. Similarly, Pratap Sarangi must reflect on the defeat of the BJP in the last Baleswar Assembly by-election and reorganise himself for the upcoming local bodies’ elections. Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi, who has won from the prestigious seat, is another leader whom the party cadres consider as a Chief Ministerial face. A one-time win is generally considered as an accidental one in politics. Therefore, she has a herculean task of local political consolidation and simultaneous expansion. Winning the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and panchyat elections shall be a challenge to her. Baijayant Panda shall rise in the party if he performs well in the elections in Assam and Delhi, the States which the party high command has entrusted to him.
The Chief Ministerial aspirants of the opposition parties of Odisha have to keep in mind that in order to counter TINA factor of a tall leader like Naveen Patnaik, they have to not only find a place in minds of their respective party cadres but that of general public.