The BJP seems to have a working electoral strategy for most parts of the country, but none working for Naveen Patnaik’s Odisha
SIDDHARTHA TRIPATHY
By delivering a populist interim budget at the beginning of this month, the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government made its intentions to the public and political rivals across the nation crystal clear: No matter what its real and perceived failures had been over the past years, no matter how dismal its results might have been in recent state assembly elections, and no matter what the political analysts have been predicting for the coming general elections, the BJP shall fight tooth and nail to repeat its results, at least the final outcome, from five years ago.
Like a well-oiled political machine, the ruling party at the Centre already seems to have customised strategies in place – and already at play – in most of the electorally important states of the country to ensure that it not only bags the maximum possible number of Lok Sabha seats from there, but also grabs the lion’s share of assembly seats of those going to the polls simultaneously.
In the west, political circles in Maharashtra are abuzz with talks that the ruling BJP is planning to do everything in its powers to prevent the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party from coming together once again to give it and coalition partner Shiv Sena a run for their money.
The saffron party has good reasons to be wary and worry over the state that sends 48 MPs to the Lok Sabha – second only to Uttar Pradesh’s 80.
First, the state has traditionally been a Congress stronghold since Independence. Second, the Congress-NCP coalition had ruled it unbeaten and uninterruptedly for 15 long years until as recently as 2014 when it broke up only to be swept away by the Modi wave. Third, NCP boss Sharad Pawar, who has friends across the political spectrum, has clearly moved from his overtly amicable relationship with Prime Minister Modi towards making up with the Grand Old Party.
The shift was conclusively evident late last year when Pawar publicly criticized Prime Minister Modi for finger-pointing the Gandhis and went on to sing high praise of the dynasty, right from India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru all the way down to current Congress president Rahul Gandhi. The shrewd and seasoned Maratha strongman also went on to say that the nation should be “proud of” the Gandhi family for continuing to serve its poor despite having to deal with the assassinations of former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Therefore, according to political observers, the BJP is already on its way to using a couple of alleged scams – one involving a Mumbai-based top housing finance firm and the other an aircraft deal, both dating back to the Congress-UPA regime – to deter Pawar from joining hands with the Congress or any kind of anti-BJP alliance for that matter. The sudden resurfacing of the housing finance company’s case and the arrival on scene of corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar from the Middle East is being seen by many as supporting evidence to that notion.
In the south, the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government of Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress in Karnataka appears to be in a shaky position ahead of the big elections.
Nearly a dozen disgruntled Congress MLAs did not attend the joint session of the House on February 6, the first day of the 10-day budget session, before they were warned of disqualification under the anti-defection law. Given the 225-member assembly has 80 members from the Congress (including the Speaker), 37 from partner JD-S, and 104 from BJP, with the remaining ones being one each from BSP and the KPJP (a regional party), it was crucial for Congress to have the support of all of its 79 MLAs to pass the budget for the next fiscal.
GOING SOUTH
As the squabbling between the Congress and JD-S leaders over power-sharing takes a toll on their alliance, which was anyway formed in May last year with the singular purpose of keeping the BJP out of power, the saffron party has discreetly adopted a wait-and-watch approach, ready to strike while the iron is hot.
Hence, while it sought a division of votes on the budget before its presentation before the assembly, a step that seemed to be clearly intended at defeating the ruling allies on the floor of the House, state BJP state president and Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly B.S. Yeddyurappa assured that his party would neither come in the way of Kumaraswamy presenting the budget nor move a no-confidence motion against the coalition government.
However, Yeddyurappa’s stated reasons for the party line on the matter was interesting: “We will neither move a no-confidence motion nor approach the Governor. The government will collapse on its own, given the bickering among its MLAs. The government is on the brink due to ‘revolt’ in the Congress and serious differences between the two allies over many issues.”
Yet, speculation was rife that the BJP has something to do with the absence of the rebel MLAs of the ruling coalition. Both the Congress and JD-S have at least agreed upon one thing: accusing the BJP of poaching their MLAs.
In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, where the political void left by the passing of former chief minister and AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa has yet to be filled, the BJP is chanting the development mantra and keeping friendly relations with the ruling AIADMK party to gain ground in a place where both the saffron party and Congress have traditionally had limited presence.
During his second visit earlier this month to the southern state within a span of a fortnight, Prime Minister Modi launched a slew of development projects, some from a shared stage with Chief Minister Edapapdi K Palansiwami. These are moves which are expected to not just win over the current AIADMK leadership and the people of Tamil Nadu, but also have a strong answer to the potentially dangerous rival partnership of Congress and DMK.
In Andhra Pradesh, however, the BJP is engaging a very different strategy: an all-out war of words. With the ruling Telegu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu being a leading man of the much-vaunted Congress-led united opposition apart from being one of the most vocal anti-BJP leaders in the country these days, Prime Minister showed little restraint in paying the TDP leader back in kind.
During a recent BJP rally in the state, which was conducted amid protests across the state, Prime Minister Modi directly accused Naidu of corruption. Referring to himself as the watchman of the nation, Modi said Naidu was getting sleepless nights because the Centre was insistent upon “seeking account for every rupee given to Andhra Pradesh for its development”.
Slamming Naidu for joining an opposition alliance of parties and leaders that had been accused, even legally, of cheating the poor and common people of the nation, Prime Minister Modi said the TDP leader had also failed to deliver on his promise of boosting the infrastructure of the state and instead focused on promoting his own son.
This was seen as a clear response to Naidu’s accusations against Prime Minister Modi of not fulfilling his promise of providing Special Category Status, among other commitments, made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014.
In response to Naidu’s claim that he was senior to Modi, the Prime Minister was at his acerbic best: “You are senior in changing parties, in entering alliance with new parties, you are senior in backstabbing your own father-in-law, losing election after election, and you are senior in shattering the dreams of Andhra Pradesh.”
EAST MODE
Moving on to the east, the belligerence between Modi government and Naidu government pales in comparison to the saffron party’s recent stand-off with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
For good reason.
With chief minister Mamata Banerjee organising the United Opposition Rally that was attended by leaders of as many as 22 anti-BJP parties from across the country in Kolkata last month, West Bengal was increasingly being perceived as the cradle of a fast-developing political force that could shake the mighty BJP right to its core in the coming elections.
Therefore, ever since the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) stepped up its investigations into the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams and grilled Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar and former Trinamool MP Kumal Ghosh earlier this month, the BJP was accused of using the nation’s premier investigative agency as a timely weapon against its political rivals what with elections barely over a couple of months away.
A similar narrative began running in the north when Robert Vadra, the brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate for questioning over multiple money laundering cases soon after his wife Priyanka Gandhi’s formal plunge into mainstream politics as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary of Eastern Uttar Pradesh.
While the BJP is the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, it is not taking anything for granted in the electorally most significant state. Certainly not after the unlikely but potent alliance between Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the apparent galvanisation of Congress cadre following Priyanka’s grand entry, and talks in the media about the fast-diminishing popularity of chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s administration.
However, coming back to the east, the BJP still seems to be groping for a definite strategy against the BJD government in Odisha. Therefore, the party seems to be firing blank shots in the dark, hoping that something hits and hurts the Naveen Patnaik administration.
During his latest visit to the state earlier this month, while addressing the BJP’s Scheduled Tribe Morcha’s national convention in Puri, party president Amit Shah once again likened the BJD government to a “burnt transformer” on grounds that it was failing to transfer Central funds to the people of the state.
Claiming that the Rs 5.13 lakh crore worth of funds allocated by the Centre to Odisha was not percolating to the grassroots level, Shah asked his audience: “Can electricity reach to your home without a transformer?”
Then he went on to say that just like a burnt transformer is supposed to be discarded, so should the BJD government be thrown out.
Shah also baselessly accused the BJD of being a sidekick of Congress.
FALLING FLAT
“Naveen babu’s party is a B team of Congress. They are two sides of same coin. Congress ruled for so long in Odisha. Did Odisha develop? Naveen Patnaik also ruled for 19 years. Did Odisha develop?” he asked.
The BJP president even raised the hackneyed issue of Naveen’s lack of fluency in Odia.
Saying that the Chief Minister was “not able to hear the people’s voice” as he did not understand or speak Odia, Shah urged the people of the state to ensure that the next Chief Minister they elect is someone who could at least speak their mother tongue.
“It’s a question of respect for the Odia language,” Shah stated.
No longer willing to ignore such remarks, especially with elections round the corner, the Chief Minister came up with ready-witted responses to the Shah’s rants.
“We shall wait and see who is the fused transformer and who is the transformer of Odisha,” Naveen said, adding that it is the people of Odisha who “will decide which government will be thrown away and which one will stay”.
He also let his work do the talking once again, as usual, by announcing the launch of ‘KALIA Chhatra Bruti’, which provides scholarships to the children of Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation scheme beneficiaries for pursuing higher education.
Patnaik declared that the government had launched the ‘KALIA Chhatra Bruti’ programme to give the children of the farmers a pathway to a better future.
Under the scholarship scheme, the Odisha government shall bear the educational expenses of KALIA beneficiaries’ children studying in government professional colleges on merit, according to an official statement.
However, four days later, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), BJP’s youth wing, was seen marching towards the state Assembly protesting over rising unemployment in the state. Boisterous and rowdy BJYM members clashed with security personnel while attempting to cross barricades around the Odisha Assembly in the state capital of Bhubaneswar.
Speaking to the media present on the site, Odisha BJYM president Tankadhar Tripathy pointed out that more than 22 lakh youth have registered themselves with the employment exchanges in the state over the past decade but the government had provided jobs to a meagre 26,000 of them so far.
The very next day, the Chief Minister exposed the BJP as he requested the Centre to release food subsidy to the state in a timely manner. In his letter to Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Naveen stated that Odisha’s food subsidy bill of Rs 3,654.41 crore had yet to be cleared by the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD).
“It is a matter of concern that Odisha’s subsidy bill amounting to Rs 3,654.41 crore (which includes the advance subsidy up to March 2019) is pending with the DFPD. Such a huge pendency is causing shortage of funds at the Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation (OSCSC), which may hinder timely payment to farmers,” he said.
The irony of the BJP – which has been facing far more flak from critics nationwide for its failure to generate enough jobs in the country – pointing fingers at Naveen Patnaik administration for rising unemployment in Odisha, was not lost on the people of the state and beyond.
With Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s public image still as clean as a whistle and with his administration doing plenty for the poor and common people through a plethora of welfare schemes, the BJP will need to do a lot more than what it has done so far to even have half a chance of challenging the seemingly unassailable BJD on its home turf.
Of all the states nationwide, it is probably Odisha that is most highly likely to yet again give the BJP its waterloo moment in the coming elections.
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