As BJP State president KV Singh Deo will complete his tenure soon, no one is so far projected as the BJP’s face in Odisha.
This is mostly because none seems ready to consider another superior.
If the party can project Narendra Modi as Prime Ministerial candidate even in the presence of stalwarts like lK Advani, where is the difficulty in finding one for Odisha unitIJ In the absence of an unambiguous party diktat, there is absolute chaos at the top even as Sing Deo continues to be the president of the party.
The public posturing and utterances of Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is only helping create more confusion about leadership.
The Union Minister is given more importance than his senior colleague Jual Oram, a Cabinet Minister, not only by many in the State unit, but by almost all Ministers in their words and actions vis-Ã -vis Odisha.
If BJP’s central leadership finds so much of worth in Pradhan, why isn’t he formally be projected as the face of the party in Odisha to take on NaveenIJ
The sooner BJP high command realised its mistake of not projecting any one equal to BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik during the coalition Government from 2000 to 2008, the better it will become to strengthen the party in Odisha.
The BJP’s strength in Odisha remained more or less equal as it was during the 2014 general elections. Though the BJP secured absolute majority in the lok Sabha, the Odisha unit of the party failed to please the central leadership.
Modi charisma which did wonders in many States just fizzled out so far as Odisha was concerned. Dilip Ray’s charm could save the face of the party by winning both Assembly Seat of Rourkela and MP seat from Sundargarh.
In spite of the debacle, the central leadership allowed two from Odisha to figure in Modi’s Council of Ministers apparently sending a signal that party sincerely wants to gain momentum in the State to prevent Naveen juggernaut galloping forward.
Even party’s national president Amit Shah did not allow the party functionaries to go berserk against Naveen without creating a robust cadre base in the State.
He rightly advised the party leaders to use restraint and consolidate the party at the grassroots level without getting engaged only in spitting fire against Naveen in public rallies.
A cursory look at BJP’s public shows in Odisha would suggest that neither it has grown any bigger than what it was in 2014, nor the public perception about the party has undergone any transformation.
If coming second in Kandhmal lok Sabha by-election, that too conceding a defeat margin over three lakh, is anything the party’s State leaders feel as success, so be it. Name any election, it is going BJD’s way and BJP hardly makes any dent anywhere.
The diagnosis of this malady could be the absence of a Naveen like bellwether who can guide the party to success.
Party has suffered before and now also is finding hard to consolidate primarily because no one is projected as the undisputed leader of the unit.