Orissa: The feel bad factor

With the intensification of offensive by the BJP against the BJD, the BJD faces the first serious threat to its position at the helm in Orissa in a decade, writes Saswat Panigrahi

Orissa is all poised for a tough triangular contest between the BJD, BJP, and the Congress in the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. With each of the major players claiming a dedicated vote bank, it is indeed difficult to read the State’s political calculus.

The Congress, which boasts of a traditional vote base in the State, has not been able to improve on its present reach as the party has miserably failed to project itself as a responsible Opposition during the decade-long BJD-BJP coalition Government. There has been an anti-Congress wave across the State since JB Patnaik’s stint as Chief Minister, a tenure marked by mass corruption which severely compromised Orissa’s development. Riding on this wave the BJD-BJP coalition swept the 2000 Assembly elections, continuing into the 2004 State elections when the anti-Congress factor combined with Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s popularity gifted the alliance another term. With Orissa’s electorate convinced that the State had been taken care of during the NDA regime, the BJP won seven of the nine parliamentary seats it contested and the BJP-BJD together won 18 out of 21.

Election 2009 is no longer an either-or contest. With the BJP and the BJD having reached a point of no-return it is time now for a parallel division of the anti-Congress votes between the two.

Indeed, a large chunk of voters in the State are fed up with the Congress-led UPA’s national security strategy, its economic policies, its failure to tackle terrorism, and its fetish for communal and caste politics. This creates space for a “moderate BJP” both in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Apart from the BJP’s considerable support base among the youth, the saffron party also has a dedicated section of voters that believes in cultural nationalism.

As for the BJD, while it may not be an ideology-based party, it is a regional outfit with grassroots presence across the State. Additionally, it has a stronger cadre than the BJP. With no ideology to fall back on, the party has to seek votes on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s decade-old performance. Here, there are enough issues in the State like bijli, sadak and paani, rehabilitation, religious conflicts and farmers’ crisis that could assume the shape of a faceless anti-incumbency factor against Patnaik. An autopsy of the problems plaguing Orissa reveals Patnaik’s lack of political will to address them which could translate into a negative verdict for the BJD.

While the Patnaik regime has brought several international investment projects to the State, reports suggest several projects are in the process of being shifted out of the State, pointing to Patnaik’s failure to address the gap between Orissa’s potential and performance. The other side of the story of course is the plight of thousands of displaced people who have been denied the benefits of these projects. The Kalinganagar massacre of January 2004, which claimed the lives of 12 tribals demanding compensation for lost land and homes, remains a blot. “Given the issue of rehabilitation, Naveen’s thirst for foreign investment will boomerang for the BJD in this election,” says a political observer.

To add to Patnaik’s list of woes is the State’s moribund agriculture sector. There is also mounting discontent among a section of Government employees and pension holders. The State’s health sector is in a chaos. The Maoists have unleashed havoc in the State during Patnaik’s decade-old regime. Eighteen of Orissa’s 30 districts are known to be Naxal infested with the Government not seen to have taken any visible action to curb the threat. On another front, tribals have been squeezed out of their ancestral land. Religious conflicts and the issue of conversion with Christian missionaries have rocked tribal districts like Kandhamal where the State Government has been seen on the side of the missionaries. Eight months have passed since the killing of VHP veteran Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati but there has been no progress in the case so far. Laxmanananda was a revered spiritual icon in the State, known for his relentless struggle for tribal welfare and for spearheading the anti-conversion movement. In this context, the BJD faces the dual charge of being anti-Hindu and anti-tribal.

By severing ties with the BJP Patnaik has unwittingly helped his former ally. Had the BJP and the BJD fought the election together, the BJP could not have escaped being part of a Government that could not punish the killers of a Hindu icon. Following the split, the BJP will be comfortable in revisiting its Hindu vote bank. Also, in the recent past the Orissa BJP has been plagued with factions, a reason for its poor performance in the recently concluded urban local elections. With the split, the faction-ridden State unit has united both against the BJD and the Congress.

“After Laxmananda’s murder the BJP cadre wanted the party to move away from the coalition with the BJD. But the coalition’s continuance had saddened the cadre. With the BJD parting ways with the BJP there is now a feel-good factor with the party coming together as a cohesive body to prove Naveen wrong,” says senior political commentator Pratap Mohanty.

Following the split with the BJP, Patnaik’s hobnobbing with the Left, the JMM and the NCP has deepened the impression of him being an opportunist. After CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary AB Bardhan called on Patnaik, the NCP, a partner of UPA at the Centre, too joined hands with the BJD. Ironically, the JMM which talks of Orissa’s bifurcation also joined the bandwagon (the arrangement with the JMM has since fallen through). Patnaik scraped through the controversial vote of confidence on March 11 on the support of these parties who once branded him corrupt. However, Patnaik’s new-found friends are considered non-entities in the State’s politics.

The BJD’s political U-turn will be easily acceptable to its leaders since barring a few bearing the Biju legacy, a sizable number of leaders of the party have a Left background, a few are erstwhile Congress while some are mere party huggers.

Playing the wronged party, the BJP is on the upswing. “Naveen betrayed the anti-Congress voters of Orissa, who did not vote exclusively for him, but for the BJP-BJD coalition. He betrayed four crore Oriyas by creating political instability in a stable State,” says BJP MP MA Kharabela Swain. With “betrayal” its running theme the BJP kickstarted its election campaign with a Vijay Sankalp Samabesh where party leader Sushma Swaraj’s speech in Oriya readily caught the people’s imagination, highlighting Patnaik’s inability to speak the language.

This week spelt further trouble for Patnaik when two of his well-known detractors, Bijoy Mohapatra and Dilip Ray, joined the BJP. The two heavyweights command considerable influence in the State’s politics, both sharing the credit for installing Naveen Patnaik as Orissa’s Chief Minister. Mohapatra recently stepped down as president of the Orissa unit of the NCP following his disagreement with the central leadership over supporting the CM. The move comes on the heels of BJD MP Archana Nayak joining the BJP. While Mohapatra declared Naveen a “serial killer” Ray said it was their “collective fight” to unseat the BJD Government and “expose” Naveen Patnaik. Former MP Anadi Sahu has also resigned from the NCP to join the BJP. With such an offensive from the saffron party, the BJD faces the first serious threat to its position at the State’s helm in a decade.

-- Published in 'Agenda', Sunday Pioneer on Mar 29 2009