IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

In addition to Naveen’s clean image and popular welfare schemes, the BJD can now count on improved standards of pro-people governance to maintain its electoral edge in the state

By SUNJOY HANS

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s latest election results should serve as an eye-opener, if not a wakeup call, for its leadership. With a little help from its allies, the saffron party sure managed to retain power in Maharashtra and Haryana and indulged in some typical chest-thumping and backslapping celebrations, but it will be ill-advised to ignore the numbers that the two assembly elections threw up – whether it be the sharp drop in its vote share in Haryana in comparison to the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year or the nearly dozen-and-a-half fewer seats it won in Maharashtra vis-à-vis 2014.

Many political and economic experts aver that these results reflect the diminishing returns of the party’s muscular nationalism amid the economic slowdown, rising unemployment and persisting agrarian crisis. Others suggest that the BJP will do well to focus on the real problems facing the people of the country rather than getting them engaged in raging debates over whether controversial Hindutva icon Veer Savarkar should be posthumously awarded the nation’s highest civilian honour of Bharat Ratna, no matter how big the man’s legacy as a freedom fighter might be.

However, back in Odisha, there is little to read into or debate about what happened in the Bijepur bypolls. Although the Biju Janata Dal was the favourite, having won the two previous elections in the constituency over the past 20 months, nobody had imagined the saffron party to suffer the kind of drubbing it did this time. Rita Sahu’s victory over BJP’s Sanat Gartia by a record-breaking margin of 97,994 votes only went on to establish one thing: The BJD is miles ahead of its closest competitor in Odisha and – contrary to what BJP supporters would like to believe – the gap is widening.

Many political analysts are noting that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s recently introduced (and institutionalised) 5T model of governance and his pioneering initiatives such as Mo Sarkar are winning hearts and minds in Odisha all over again. In addition to Naveen’s clean image and popular welfare schemes, the BJD can now count on improved standards of pro-people governance to maintain its electoral edge in the state.

The efforts of V.K. Pandian, long-time private secretary to the Chief Minister and now also secretary of the newly established 5T department, towards the cause have been particularly noteworthy. Ever since the launch of the Mo Sarkar initiative last month, the senior IAS officer, who had traditionally maintained an extremely low profile despite being Naveen’s right-hand man, has been seen tirelessly touring the state and directly interacting with people to ensure that they have rightful access to proper public infrastructure and services.

Equally importantly, the Naveen Patnaik government is also taking strong action against public servants found guilty of not implementing its initiatives.

For their own sake, as much as for the nation, those chest-thumping and backslapping BJP leaders must realise that Hindutva-laced majoritarianism can only go so far.