Though eight BJP MPs have been elected in the last general elections from Odisha, only one found a berth in the recent expansion of the Modi Ministry. Bishweswar Tudu, the first-time Lok Sabha BJP MP from Mayurbhanj, was given the Minister of State portfolios of Tribal Affairs and Jal Sakti. On the other hand, senior leader Pratap Sarangi lost his Ministerial berth as Minister of State.
Dharmendra Pradhan, the top BJP leader of Odisha, who is a member of Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, lost the powerful Cabinet Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel and was given the Cabinet portfolios of Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
Though the Education Ministry is important, in the current times of corporate and power politics, it is considered less powerful than the Ministries of Oil and Natural Gas, Steel, Mines, Finance, Commerce, Home, Defence, Foreign Affairs and Railways. In a surprise move, Ashwini Vaishnaw, a new Rajya Sabha member from Odisha, was prized with three prestigious Cabinet portfolios such as Railways, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology.
Now, he is believed to be Modi’s most trusted one among the BJP leaders of Odisha. Vaishnaw was not a BJP cadre politician but a former civil servant hailing from Rajasthan who had served in Odisha and worked in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Office.
He had later quit the job for overseas higher studies and then entered into the corporate world. Another significant dimension of his background which created ripples in the political circles during his election to the Rajya Sabha was the support of Biju Janata Dal to his candidature. And it is gossiped in the political grapevine that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has his support behind Vaishnaw’s elevation to the Union Cabinet. In brief, the Modi Cabinet reshuffle has witnessed the allotment of three Ministries to Odisha instead of the previous two.
But if one takes out Ashwini Vaishnaw from the list as he does not belong to the political category and is believed to have been inducted into the Ministry on the basis of his administrative experience like Dr S Jaishankar then the Ministry count for Odisha falls to two portfolios like before, without any numeric gain.
On the other hand, the party dropped a senior coastal leader, Pratap Sarangi and stripped off the prestigious Oil and Steel Ministries from Dharmendra Pradhan, who has been so far projected informally as the party’s Chief Minister candidate. Thus, there was a qualitative political loss for the BJP in the State.
BJP cadre politicians of the State had also cherished the hope for a berth in the expanded Union Ministry. The party MPs of west Odisha expected a Ministry as this region proved to be a fort for the BJP in last Lok Sabha elections.
Ignoring west Odisha leaders like the four-time Balangir MP Sangita Singh Deo, ex-BJP State president and Kalahandi MP Basanta Panda, senior leader and Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari and ex-Union Minister and Sundergarh MP Jual Oram would have a demoralising effect on the party’s rank and file in the region, particularly in view of the forthcoming panchayat and urban body elections. Similarly, Aparajita Sarangi, the bureaucrat-turned popular politician, who has won the last election from the prestigious Bhubaneswar constituency, was not given a Ministerial berth too. If skill was the only criterion for selection then she should have been given a chance as she has vast administrative experience.
Another leader, Baijayant Panda, who is a national vice-president of the BJP and played a leading role as the Assam Prabhari to bring victory to the party in the last Assam Assembly polls, had to go without any reward.
He had left the BJD and joined the BJP and had lost last Kendrapada Lok sabha elections as the BJP candidate. He was hoping for a berth and may be cursing himself for leaving the BJD. However, by giving a Ministerial position to the new Mayurbhanj tribal MP of Bishweswar Tudu, the BJP is expected not only enhance its popularity amng the Santali tribe-dominated north Odisha but also to have political gain in Jharkhand and other Santali-inhabited States.
There was no discontent in the party when two leaders from Odisha were inducted into the Union Cabinet in 2019 as the Cabinet’s size was small at that time. But the situation is different now with a jumbo team formation.
Had Odisha remained in the priority list of the Prime Minister then he would have allotted Ministerial berths differently to the MPs of Odisha. It is for the Odisha BJP MPs to read the mind of the Prime Minister and influence him for future favour. There is a speculation that Pratap Sarangi or other MPs lost chance in the Ministry as they belong to the general caste category while the party gave more priority to the OBC, the SC and the ST leaders in the allotment of berths. If the BJP applies caste politics in the State in future then the general caste leaders will find hard times in the party.
However, the neglect of regular BJP politicians of Odisha in the Union Ministry shall have adverse effect on the party. On the other hand, this has given political advantage to the BJD. Popularity of Naveen Patnaik has also enhanced as he had rightly supported Ashwini Vaishnaw during his Rajya Sabha election even though he was from the BJP.