Despite PM Modi’s popularity, Odisha still a long shot for BJP
ning government but whose organisational base is weakening from years of complacency and neglect. Modi’s informal Bhubaneswar roadshow last week drew tens of thousands of people, his persona is still a growing phenomenon in the state and a wider pro-BJP wave in the rest of the country might not leave Odisha untouched.
So while the electoral math is not yet in its favour, the BJP’s fortunes are on an upward swing in the state, which will put Patnaik’s government under pressure and test his mettle as a political strategist.
For now, the BJP is quick to hype the party’s zilla parishad performance and project itself as the principal challenger to Naveen’s BJD in the next election to the state assembly. A further deep dive into the panchayat results shows the BJP’s win was limited to the top tier. An overwhelming number of sarpanchs and panchayat samiti members, for which elections are not fought on party symbols, came from the Congress and the BJD. Worse, the BJP did poorly in the constituencies of its top leaders from the state, including the president of its Odisha unit, Basant Panda, and Union ministers Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan. It is also worth noting that Naveen Patnaik didn’t campaign in these panchayat elections, leaving the job to local MLAs. The Congress party may have suffered a body blow in the panchayat elections, but it continues to have strong grass-root support in many parts of the state. If the party’s central leadership moves quickly to reorganise the state unit, it stands a good chance of revival.
The party won 16 seats in 2014 and lost as many as 21 with a margin of less than 10,000 votes. In these panchayat elections, its vote share slipped to 18% from 25% in 2014. Even with the current share, local party workers say, the Congress can look to win 25-30 seats if it sets its house in order now.
A three-cornered contest, in which anti-incumbency spoils are shared between the Congress and the BJP, benefits Patnaik’s BJD. Patnaik has already taken to course correction, rejigging the roles of his senior party officials and kicking off a districtwise review of development programmes. On Friday, his administration moved swiftly to prevent a repeat of Bhadrak-like communal violence in Kendrapada, a coastal stronghold of the BJD with a substantial Muslim population. He is also seeking an image makeover – the first sign of which came last week when he posed for a selfie with a teenage girl in a coastal village who “fought a crocodile” to save her sister. The biggest challenge for the BJP will be to sustain the momentum until the assembly elections, which are two years away. It benefits from a strong presence of the RSS and other Hindu affiliates in the western and tribal-dominated districts of the state, but its own network of political workers is limited in comparison to that of the BJD, which also has the advantage of being able to leverage the state administration.
It currently has 10 MLAs and could win only one of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. None of its local leaders have popular appeal in the state.
Oram, a tribal leader from northern Sundergarh, has a strong grip in some of the tribaldominated constituencies, but lacks any following in the coastal region that sends 71 MLAs to the assembly. Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who is credited with the organisational success of this weekend’s executive meeting, is widely seen as a CM face, but he has yet to win broader acceptance both within and outside the party. The state of the Congress is no different either. That gives Patnaik an enormous advantage, which the BJP hopes to counter by leaning on the Prime Minister’s popularity. We will have to wait and see if brand Modi can swing it in yet another state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday tried to strike an emotional chord with the local population, comprising mostly tribals and Patidars, who are up in arms against the Gujarat government, demanding OBC status.
His outreach came as he inaugurated a slew of projects totaling about ₹2,000 crore during a twoday whirlwind tour of his home state Gujarat. With lakhs of farmers, cattle-rearers and the marginalised in attendance at various functions that he addressed, Modi reached out to Patidars, saying their love for him has remained unchanged.
After a roadshow in Surat on Sunday evening, the Prime Minister inaugurated a ₹400-crore multispecialty hospital in Surat on Monday, opened a diamond factory in Ichhapur and inaugurated a ₹1,131-crore irrigation project for parched Saurashtra. The engagements set the stage to connect with the Patidars as he covered the community’s strongholds in Surat and Saurashtra.
Six months ago, BJP chief Amit Shah had to wind up his speech in four minutes in Surat. But at the same place on Monday, months before Gujarat goes to assembly polls, Modi was full of praise for Patidars. He said people in other parts of the state have probably changed the way they behave with him after he became the PM.
“Surat is the only exception,” he said, adding that he likes coming back to the city because it feels like home to him.
At the hospital inauguration, Modi said, “After the Vajpayee government, my government has brought in a healthcare policy after a gap of 15 years.” He also said the government would bring a new law to see that doctors prescribe only generic medicines.
After the Vajpayee government, my government has brought in a healthcare policy after a gap of 15 years.