Dharmendra Pradhan the BJP’s CM face for Odisha trying hard to install BJP in Odisha since 2016. He makes the necessary changes in the organisational set up and made Basanta Panda the President of BJP Odisha in 2016. He used all his forces to downsize his competitor in the party like Jual Oram and KV Singhdeo etc. BJP send many Union ministers many a time including their master election strategist Amit Shah. BJP’s slogan to dislodge BJD was “19 years of incapable and incompetent Naveen Sarkar”. But BJP got only 23 MLAs in 2019 election.
Within the end of one month of the election BJD voted BJP Rajy Sabha MP Ashwin Vaishnaw from Odisha. It was a clear compromise between both the parties that BJP will not harsh BJD with CBI, ED etc and BJD will support them in Rajy Sabha as well as in Lok Sabha. Now with this compromising political scenario no doubt both parties can get temporary benefits but BJP and Dharmendra cannot succeed to the throne.
BJP sources says that BJD will be weaker after Naveen Patnaik and party may collapse but I think they have little idea that his nephew Arun Patnaik will succeed him and at that time the political scenario will be very different from now. At that time Naveen babu will be an even larger poster figure than his father Biju babu. And there will be difficulties for BJP to capture Bhubneswar.
But BJP have few options. They may keep continue their aggressive campaigning like before the election time detaching all political tie up from BJD or either bifurcating the state into Utkal & Kosal region.
BJP need to understand that Odisha is not a cow belt. Ideas like Baba, Gomata, Ganga Mata etc will not work here. Odisha is affluent with adivasis with two major cultural regions; Utkal & Kosal. If Kosal is bifurcated out of Odisha then Kosal part will be leaderless for BJD. Definitely Naveen babu’s charisma will limited to Utkal region. And BJP may continue the power for a longer time in Kosal without any political thereat.
Saket Sreebhushan Sahu