Saga Of Mismanagement Bhubaneswar : 9/March/2014 With the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing April 10 and April 17 as the dates for polling in Odisha, leaders in both the ruling and the opposition parties are under great anxiety. While ruling BJD is making determined efforts to capture power for the fourth consecutive time, will the Congress be in a position to return to power after a decade and a half? Who can defeat Naveen? Can the main opposition party unseat the BJD supremo? While this moot question is making rounds, getting a ticket in ruling BJD is another item, which is seriously bothering its leaders. Who will get ticket this time? Will Naveen re-nominate all sitting MLAs and MPs or introduce new faces? Nobody is confident that s/he will get another chance in the backdrop of Pyari Mohan Episode. The situation for the aspirants in both the parties is almost the same. Congressmen in every nook and corner of the state are kept in dark. None of them is sure of getting a party ticket. The Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) for the first time in the history of elections is being held in Delhi while there is none to give solace to the party rank and file back in the state about the decisions being taken at the national capital. The recent desertion of senior leaders from the party indicates that all is not well in the opposition Congress. Though Congress, according to political observers, has all the potential to unseat the 14-year-old BJD government, mismanagement by the state leadership seems to be eating into its electoral prospects. It is the Jena Brotherhood (Srikant Jena, Chairman of the OPCC campaign Committee and Jaydev Jena, PCC President) which has been deciding the fate of Congress in Odisha and has put the entire rank and file in utter confusion. The combination has totally failed to win the confidence of party men, which is evident from the mass exodus from the party. That the people do not trust the Jenas is evident from the fact that many have already raised their voice against the state leadership. Many are deserting party and the list is ever growing. Resignation of Bhupinder Singh, the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly and that of Anup Sai from the Congress tells volumes about the mismanagement in the party. Singh was interested in Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat and wanted some of his supporters and original Congressmen to get tickets. Both these leaders joined BJD on Saturday. Hemendra Singh, District President of Nayagarh district, has left the Congress and joined BJD just before election dates were announced. Singh was followed by the powerful Patnaik couple- Ramakrushna Patnaik and Kumudini Patnaik of Ganjam, Sibshankar Ullaka in Rayagada, Umesh Swain in Jagatsinghpur and Kamala Das in Balasore. All of them have left Congress raising voice against the state leadership. While resignation of Hemendra Singh and Sibshankar Ullaka, son of former tribal leader and former minister Ramachandra Ullaka, is considered a big blow to the party, the OPCC president seems least bothered over the development. “There is no respect and priority for the original Congressmen in the OPCC,” pointed out a senior leader, adding that party tickets are offered to persons who are influential, resourceful and well connected. In the process, a true Congressman is getting frustrated. “These moneyed people will come to the party and go, but the real Congressman who is in the party for decades is being ignored,” said a senior leader from Kendrapara district blaming the state leadership for mismanagement. Why PEC is conducted in Delhi? Can a common Congressman go and camp in Delhi to get a ticket? OPCC spokesperson Arya Kumar Gyanedra recently announced that he would not take part in any party activity for the next one year in protest against the way the party is being run in the state. The mining and builder mafia is calling the shots in the party when it comes to ticket distribution, he said in the strongest indictment. With Congressmen getting frustrated over ticket distribution, sources said, the ruling BJD has already set its eye on certain sitting Congress MLAs. About half-a-dozen of Congress MLAs are in touch with the BJD supremo and are likely to switch their loyalty to the regional outfit ahead of elections. Question that hits everybody’s mind today is: Will Congress taste defeat in hands of Naveen for the fourth time in a row? While the party rank and file is totally disturbed over the happenings in the OPCC, political observers this time opine that the oldest party in the country has all the potential to return to power this time, but for the mismanagement. Besides anti-incumbency factor, the BJD Government has many weak points which could bring its downfall. There is corruption at every level, from dal scam to mining scam. Some of the BJD MLAs have become millionaires and some of the Ministers billionaires during these 14 years. There has been rise in atrocities against women; rape and murder of young girls are on the rise and political protection is being extended to accused persons, alleged a former Chief Minister. Take the case of the Tikiri lady teacher, who was burnt to death, the case in which the ruling party leaders went scot free, he pointed out. This apart, at least a dozen Ministers have earned bad name for the government and the party and hopelessly the Congress leadership is unable to turn the tide against the BJD. Congress leadership, which is engaged in intra-party squabbles, has least time to take on the government even though Srikant Jena appears in “60 families vs 60 lakh families” advertisement in newspapers, saying that only a few families in the state have benefited at the cost of the vast majority. So the main opposition of the state is in utter confusion for which political pundits blame it on Jena Brotherhood.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 07:53:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015