Amit Shah’s much-awaited speech here on Tuesday confirmed a general impression that the BJP high command has decidedly adopted a soft stand vis-à-vis Naveen Patnaik and his BJD Government in Odisha.
In an obvious embarrassment to the BJP State leadership, the party’s national president refrained from taking on the Patnaik regime in hard terms, unlike what he had recently done in case the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC Government during his visit to West Bengal. In the result, BJP State president KV Singh Deo cut a sorry figure as he had roared earlier to Shah’s address that what Shah was going to say would rob Naveen Patnaik of his sleep.
And party State stalwart Bijay Mohapatra had asserted that the Shah rally would amount a “pledge taking” by the BJP to bring down the thoroughly-corrupt BJD Government. Shah’s speech, in fact, just had a ritualistic, passing reference to the mining and chit fund scams in Odisha when he said in a sentence that the State would have an end to all such corruptions when a BJP Government is installed in future.
And, most significantly, Shah granted “time” to the BJD Government to improve its performance so that the lots of the State’s people are bettered compared to the country’s developed States. The impression in many quarters that the ongoing CBI inquiry into the chit fund scam, despite being directed by the Supreme Court, has slowed down in view of the Centre’s virtual patronising attitude towards the Patnaik Government has been further strengthened.