Bhubaneswar: The general election to Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly is less than eight months to go and the parties are preparing strategies to fight the battle. The state’s principal opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, also prepares strategy on how to unseat six-time Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and oust his Governing BJD. Though BJD is ahead of others, the BJP is not lagging behind. Beginning from Bhubaneswar to Delhi and also in Guwahati, the saffron brigade has made elaborate plans to oust BJD. The party’s think tank has kept several secret strategies to win over the BJD. And the BJP leadership is publicly setting targets on the number of seats it is expected to win both in the Lok Sabha and also in the State Assembly.
It is good to hear that the BJP is all prepared to give a solid opposition to the mighty BJD. All the strategies and plans are made in big cities while the ground reality is totally different. The saffron party installed its old war horse Manmohan Samal as the State President. But, the fact remains that no wish of ‘Manmohan is fulfilled. His attempts to reorganize State Unit is yet to get the central leadership’s nod. He has been running from Bhubaneswar to Delhi, but unable to set a new team to take on BJD. How can the old war horse will be able to fight in the way he wanted unless his team is not in place?
When Manmohan is unable to set up his district teams, how can he strengthen the booths and get votes for the party candidate? This is not all, Manmohan is also not able to reorganize the frontal organizations of the party which work among the people at grass root level.
Whenever State BJP President goes to Delhi to get nod for his teams, he is told that soon it will be done, an insider said, adding that some unseen power rejects the State President’s list and the process is being inordinately delayed. This indicated that two forces are working in BJP. While Manmohan is certainly one force, another force is also there attempting to foil all his attempts. There should be no doubt that there is silent infighting within the BJP. The situation had led not to strengthen the party, but to weaken it and demolish confidence of the ‘Karyakarta’ working in the field.
The situation in BJP has now taken a different shape. The aspiring candidates for the elections, are in a fix as to whom to keep in good humor and approach for the party ticket. When they find that Manmohan is unable to set up his own team, how can one expect that he will effectively give a party ticket for a Lok Sabha or assembly polls? One of the aspiring candidates confided that he is having access to all the state leaders, but unable to approach anyone. This is because, if he goes to Manmohan, the other group will try to delete his name and vice-versa.
The party veterans like JP Nadda, Sunil Bansal and others are unable to see the ground reality and busy in making strategies at macro level. Who will implement the strategies when there are groups operating against each other within the party? Organizational structures have started crumbling due to lack of coordination and oneness among the senior leaders in the state. Though all have surrendered before the central leadership, none is ready to give space to others to grow. Groupism has now spread to districts and blocks and booth level, which is clearly visible, pointed out a political observer
Other than Baijyant Panda, no leader from the BJP got a berth in the central organization. This has indicated how the central leadership has been treating the state leaders and many of them in Odisha feel neglected and obviously lose the stream to work for the party in the coming elections.
The ruling BJD which has been preparing to acquire power for the six consecutive time in a row, has the last laugh. When Congress is on wane and BJP busy in infighting, Naveen is a happy man. As an intelligent politician, Naveen knows it pretty well that infighting in BJP and Congress will ultimately weaken the opposition. Therefore, the ruling party has been soft to a particular group, which encourages the forces to oppose the BJP State President Manmohan Samal, who has just one agenda to oust BJD from power. As a political outfit, BJD has been doing its job, but the BJP has failed to unite its rank and file even as the new President was expected to run the party taking all under one umbrella.
Though Manmohan has been trying to bring all into the party, the group opposed to him ensures that all his attempts fail to yield any result. The sabotaging factors within the saffron party has been affecting the BJP. And how to tackle such forces is the major headache for the State Party Chief, admit insiders, for which formation of a new team for State Unit facing road block.