Even as the intra-BJD turmoil continued on Wednesday, political quarters kept waiting for what the party head Naveen Patnaik would do as a firefighting measure to save the image of the party as well as his.
In fact, BJD spokesperson Amar Prasad Satpathy admitted to the media that Patnaik was in the know of the discordant notes emanating from different sections of the party and that the boss was considering what steps to take.
Furthering his virtual challenge to the BJD leadership, party MP Baijayant Panda again resorted to his twitting game on Wednesday, accusing a section of “vested interests” in the BJD of creating confusion over his Tuesday’s newspaper article pleading for “self-introspection” in the party for its present sad state of affairs.
And Panda wanted that Naveen Patnaik make moves fast to revive the strength of the BJD by identifying those who are the real challengers threatening the preeminent position of the ruling party.
To make matters worse for the party, its MlA Debasish Samantaray joined the issue against Panda, stating that the Members of Parliament do not know the realities and it is only the MlAs who are in touch with the people at the grassroots level. His statement obviously went against Panda as an MP.
Interestingly, Panda’s publicly-expressed views include the one that small fledglings are now dominating in the party to the exclusion of the senior leaders who have been with the BJD from its inception. One of these overambitious young elements is considered to be Samantaray.
As for BJD vice-president and Minister Damodar Rout, who is known to be bitterly against the activities of a younger section including Samantaray in the party, he again volunteered to precipitate the present issue. Rout was supportive of Baijayant Panda as he said that Panda being a very senior BJD leader, what he has observed about the party “should not be taken lightly”.
After all, Rout himself is a critic of the BJD Government being dominantly run by bureaucrats before Panda echoed the similar charge that is viewed as a challenge to the Naveen Patnaik style of administration.
Significantly, the BJD home war is brewing ahead of the BJP’s national executive meeting in Bhubaneswar on April 15 and 16 when Prie Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah are to be present here to work in the direction of their proclaimed intention that Odisha is on the saffron party’s priority agenda for the 2019 general elections.
In this backdrop, many observers are of the view that Baijayant Panda’s “bombshell” in the BJD is timely in view of speculations of his tilting towards the BJP after being distanced by Naveen Patnaik from the BJD core circle for long.