My article on 15.04.2013. Please comment. TWIN BUGS BITE THE POLITICAL RIVALS HARD As General election in 2014 knocks the door, Political Parties in Odisha have started flexing their muscle for the Grand showdown. All the Parties in Odisha have started taking their stocks and are in search of Success Mantra. In politics, most credible way to success is to eradicate the shortcomings in the organisation developed during the passage of time. Political parties can draw inspiration from wise words of Benjamin Disraeli- “There is no education like adversity”. Out of the scores of parties in Odisha, besides ‘yet to born’ offshoot of Odisha Jana Morcha’, two parties, namely Congress and BJD will play the pivotal roles in the coming General Election 2014. Both the parties suffer from various infirmities which should be looked after by them to ensure their competitive edge over other. The grand old party Congress has been out of power in Odisha for last 13 years. Nonetheless, the position of Congress Party to fight the ruling BJD has never improved all through these years. Congress got 26 & 38 seats in 2000 and 2004 respectively against the formidable combine of BJD & BJP. The tally of Congress in 2009 got reduced to meagre 27 seats even when the BJD fighted alone in the election after ditching BJP at the last moment. The main drawback of the Grand Old Party is the all pervasive intra party rivalry. This may be a typical drawback of the state unit of a National Party where there is no acceptable towering leader at the State Level. Everybody wants to be the numero uno of the party and thereby to increase their claim to post of Chief Minister, if any day, the people of Odisha turn charitable to Congress. Everybody wants to show up at 10, Janpath (read Sonia Gandhi’s Residence) trying to improve their face value. They prefer to galvanise all their efforts to increase their individual acceptability to Central Leaders rather than striving for the growth of Party’s fortune in State. The situations of Odisha Congress is more alarming as there are number of splintered groups working at cross purposes across the state unit. It is imperative for individual congress leader to focus on the larger goal of winning over Odisha electorates than spending their time and energy for proving themselves to be ahead of others. The other harmful drawback is the stigma of step motherly attitude of congress as alleged by different parties operating in Odisha. It is painful but a reality that whichever party comes to power at centre, in this era of coalitions, substantial allocations to states are made on the basis of political considerations intended for the survival of the Central Government. This turns out to be an emotive issue for the people of Odisha, having more than half of its people failing to get their bare minimum food for life, when Prime Minister’s promise of Rs. 20000 crore flood relief does not materialise. The people at ground level are not much worried about ground reality of development in the state under the present regime of Odisha; they are more concerned for the Rs.1000 crore flood assistance for Andhra Pradesh to appease the local unit or Rs.20000 crore allocation for upliftment of poor for West Bengal culminating from the threat from fiery Mamata or Rs. 70000 crores for development of Bihar to keep Nitish in good humour. Congress should endeavour for a delicate balance in assistances to different states to avoid any apparent differentiation between congress ruled states vis a vis non congress ruled state like Odisha. The Congress party will not get much advantage by drum-drumming its central schemes intended for the welfare of the people. It has to find an emotional chord with the average voter in Odisha by announcing one or two special schemes for addressing the colossal poverty in Odisha coupled with effective publicity for public awareness of the same. On the other hand, the ruling BJD, which is riding the success for last 13 years susceptible to veiled drawbacks more serious in nature. The regional outfit has been growing from strength to strength and in fact, after deserting erstwhile ally BJP in 2009 general election, it could not only succeed in making a hat-trick but also with a stunning tally of 103 sits. One of the two most concerning drawbacks of BJD is lack of aggressive but coherent posturing in communicating with Public. If one concentrate on the way the BJD leaders debate upon the issues in Media, it seems that they prefer to be interested in defending (not attacking) everything and anything or at the best to act as a moderator in a debate. People at large want strong and logical messages to believe it to be true. We may take the example of Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Arguably, he may not be a great arguer at par with Arun Jaitley or Ravishankar Prasad of his party. But, the way he delivers his messages with all his demeanours creates effective impact in the minds of audiences, and indeed, quite enviable for any fellow politician. BJP does have an effective ‘political’ reply to the question of opponents regarding ghastly Godhra Riot or Karnataka Mining Scams. So also the Congress has the ‘politically’ convincing message regarding the poser by opponents regarding 1984 Sikh riots or 2G scam. In contrast, the people don’t sense any effective reply from BJD with regards to Pyari Mahapatra’s allegation regarding absence of democracy in BJD or Congress’ allegation regarding Centre’s allocation being underutilised or misutilised; or BJP’s attack on mining scams. Against these onslaughts, leaders’ utterances that Pyari Mahapatra’s attempt to float a party is a failure; or Congress has shown step-motherly attitude; or BJP chief Minister in Karnataka has gone to the Jail will not allay the apprehension of the people at large. It may be noted that the longer one party remains in incumbency, larger will be the number of posers and allegations against it. BJD, as an incumbent political party, must face the people with aggressive but logical reply to these types of political onslaughts. The other most damaging drawback of BJD is over dependence on Naveen Pattnaik’s image which has entailed complacency at all levels. It is not unusual to notice that the BJD leaders, when delivering speech during the election campaigning, starts with the magnanimity of ‘Naveen’ and ends with swearing in the name of ‘Naveen’. It is but natural that fellow party leaders try to capitalise on the image of Party Supremo. But in BJD, most leaders take shelter behind the persona of Naveen Pattnaik and are complacent about their own performance. Traditionally, the organisation of regional party BJD is known to be revolving around the organisational skills of its’ leaders at grass roots in contrast to that of National Party where name and image the Party takes precedence. After third time return to power, the leaders of regional outfit have appeared to be more complacent and have distanced themselves from the ground realities at their respective constituencies. Relying utterly on Naveen’s image, they are quite happy sitting at capital city and communicating with their local representatives at their constituencies. Wave of ‘Naveen’ has made them so intoxicated that they even think of projecting their apolitical sons or relatives in next Election 2014 either in addition to or in place of them. At least 40 to 45 seats are eyed to be fielded by children or other relatives of the standing politicians of BJD. Politics has evolved a lot during these 13 years of regime, and as expectedly, the image of Naveen has been dented during this passage of time. The leaders of BJD should come to term with the fact that political activity precedes the name of party’s supremo in influencing the outcome of an election at the present juncture. Repeated winners like Narendra Modi of Gujarat or Sheila Dikshit of Delhi did judge the malady in time. They have replaced one- third old guards with new blood in state elections, and even taken the painful decision of axing their own point men in the organisation for the overall interest of the party. Any short of nepotism or fixing the inheritor through selection of candidates in election will be a drastic suicidal step for the BJD as it would not only pollute the atmosphere in the organisation but also create disillusionment among the potential voters. As the election is coming nearer, let us see how hard the bugs bite two political rivals till the Election 2014. CA. Vivekananda Nayak Mob :9439955804
Posted on: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 08:45:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015