Marketing Biju Patnaik’s name and fame for its survival and continuance in power may not help the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) any longer. It appears the BJD is bleeding the Biju brand white for its quest to return to power for a fifth term in a row in 2019.
As evident during the Biju death anniversary celebrations by the BJD on Monday, it is indeed over-selling of the legendary leader for a narrow partisan goal. The parroting of Biju Patnaik’s “vision” even by Naveen Patanik without detailing what it is about is like resorting to a desperate bid to keep the BJD afloat at a time when anti-incumbency signs against the ruling regional outfit are visible.
The State Government also spent lakhs and lakhs of rupees of taxpayers’ money on advertisements in newspapers to pay tributes to Biju Patnaik. Biju’s contributions to Odisha’s development are well-known, but the BJD, with an eye on votes, tries to tell people that all this is its own achievements.
look why the BJD is harping on the “Biju legacy” in a super hyping manner. In a situation where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasing its pressure on the BJD since its credible performance at the BJD’s cost in the recent panchayat elections, the BJD’s slogans against the Centre are becoming increasingly fainter. The BJD is at a loss to reply to the Modi Government’s claim that the Centre has now been liberally providing funds for the State’s development which the BJD administration is unable to utilise. The BJP’ surge and the resultant BJD defensiveness have become more pronounced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Bhubaneswar on the occasion of the BJP national executive meeting.
Significantly, the BJD’s much-publicised anti-Centre stand on the Mahanadi water issue miserably boomeranged in the panchayat polls. People in most of the districts along the Mahanadi, especially in western Odisha, rejected the BJD and voted for the BJP. Chief Minister Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, where the so-called controversial dams on the Mahanadi are built, boldly and peacefully campaigned in western Odisha for days defying the threats of protests against his visit.
Now that the BJD is hyping its Biju legacy, it is worthwhile to recall the days in the late 1990s when this party was launched and christened after Biju and it coalesced with the BJP to fight elections. The late leader might be turning in his grave to find his name associated with a party that formed a coalition with the BJP, which he was loathing as a “communal” force.
It is plain and simple that the BJD had wanted to handhold with the BJP to ride on the Atal Bihari Vajpayee wave to come to power. If the Biju legacy is so strong an asset with the BJD, why the party did not then contest the elections on its ownIJ In fact, Biju Patnaik had himself failed to get a majority for his Janata Dal (JD) in 1995 and lost his Government, which he had formed in 1990 after remaining in wilderness for about a quarter century despite he did so much for the people of the State.
Naveen Patnaik rediscovered the BJP as “communal” by referring to the Kandhamal riots only in 2009 after sharing power with saffron party since 1998 at the Centre and since 2000 in the State. To the BJD’s advantage, the main opposition force in Odisha, the Congress, decimated itself so much so that Naveen Patnaik, on the advice of his then supreme advisor Pyarimohan Mohapatra, ended the relations with the BJP being confident of retaining power all alone.