BJD leadership remains silent after poll debacle, future direction unclear

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leaders have remained tight-lipped since they lost power to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on June 4 after 24 years of unwavering rule. Neither the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president nor any other leader of his party has made any statement on how they want to reshape their future.

The BJD’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary and assembly elections has left it in a state of helplessness. The regional party, which had won 12 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, did not get a single seat this time, while its strength in the Odisha Legislative Assembly fell from 115 to 51 seats.

Although many BJD leaders had initially blamed former chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s “over-reliance” on V Karthikeyan Pandian, a Tamil Nadu-born bureaucrat-turned-politician, to run the party and the government, they retreated into their cocoon after Naveen himself came to Pandian’s defence. The former chief minister not only defended Pandian but also went on to praise him stating that he (Pandian) had served the government and the BJD with “selflessness” and “integrity”.

While some senior leaders like Sashi Bhusan Behera and Nrusingha Sahoo had openly shared their displeasure over assigning the responsibility of the party campaign to Pandian, sources in the party said that in the very first meeting held after the poll debacle at Naveen Patnaik’s residence, many other leaders had also pointed out the role of the retired bureaucrat in the poll debacle.

“The BDD had promised to hold a follow-up meeting to assess the reasons for the electoral debacle. Surprisingly, it is yet to conduct such an exercise, though more than a month has passed since the poll results were declared on June 4. This shows that the party leaders as well as the president are reluctant to discuss the reasons for the defeat at this stage as it could open a Pandora’s box,” said political analyst Prasanna Mohanty.

Mohanty added that systematic sidelining of top leaders, giant mining scams, chit fund scams, corruption in government offices and nepotism have given rise to a strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government.

“It seems that the BJD has strategically calmed down and is waiting for major problems to arise so that it can exploit them and put the government in trouble. However, the BJD should not forget that the new government headed by tribal leader Mohan Charan Majhi has started making waves by taking a series of reform measures to redress the governance system and has announced pro-poor initiatives,” the analyst added.