Odisha CM Majhi faces reality check with back-to-back challenges

Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had a reasonably smooth sailing in his first year in office. There was plenty to crow about the first BJP government in the state as well.

The smooth implementation of the Subhadra Yojana, under which more than one crore women are set to get Rs 50,000 in financial assistance - in installments of Rs 5,000 every six months - for income generating activities over five years, was expectedly touted as a big success by the government.

In addition, investment proposals worth Rs 16.73 lakh crore received during the two-day Utkarsh Odisha summit in January painted a rosy picture of the industrial scenario.

The highlight of the fortnight-long celebration of the first year in office, which kicked off on June 12 (the day the Majhi government was sworn in last year), was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Bhubaneswar, during which he commended the government for its achievements in the first year.

Above all, the dismantling of the virtual one-man rule by Naveen Patnaik's Man Friday and former private secretary VK Pandian, and the restoration of the majesty of the elected representatives, came as a breath of fresh air for the people groaning under two decades of bureaucratic governance. With his easy-going manners and accessible ways, Mohan Majhi earned the sobriquet 'People's Chief Minister'.

But hardly had the euphoria of the first year died down when things began to go steeply south for the Majhi government. It all started with the gang rape of a 20-year-old college girl by ten men at Gopalpur beach, a popular tourist destination in south Odisha, on June 15.

Five days later, two Dalit men were tonsured, assaulted, forced to crawl on their knees and made to drink drain water on suspicion of cattle smuggling, bringing national infamy for the Majhi government, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi taking on the regime on the issue.

On June 29, all the tall talk of an incident-free Rath Yatra in Puri, the biggest event in the religio-cultural calendar in the state, came crashing down as three persons died and scores of others were injured in a stampede the day after the Rath Yatra.

But nothing brought greater condemnation for the Majhi government than the self-immolation of a college girl in Balasore, who took the extreme step after failing to elicit any response to her desperate plea for justice after being allegedly sexually harassed by a professor. After battling for life at the AIIMS in Bhubaneswar for three days, the girl succumbed to the 90% burn injuries she had sustained on the intervening night of July 14-15.

On July 1, she had tweeted about her plight and pleaded for justice, tagging the chief minister, the Union and state higher education ministers, and everyone else who mattered. Even before the uproar over the incident had died down, a 15-year-old girl was set on fire by three miscreants in Puri district. The girl, airlifted to Delhi, is fighting for life at the AIIMS there.

While these back-to-back incidents took the sheen off the 'achievements' of the Majhi government in its first year, what is a matter of even greater concern for the beleaguered chief minister is the dissensions within the party.

A section of the state BJP leaders, seen to be close to Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who called the shots for many years, do not appear to be on the same page as the chief minister.

Significantly, BJP MPs from Odisha recently had a meeting in New Delhi where Issues related to developmental challenges in their respective constituencies were highlighted before the state president.

Majhi, the first BJP CM of Odisha, is banking primarily on the support of the party high command, rather than support from the party's state unit, to tide over the challenges.

It's this tug of war within the party that is holding up the much-delayed expansion of the Council of Ministers and appointments to various corporations and other statutory bodies.

Notably, six ministerial positions have been lying vacant for more than a year now. As a result, several ministers are holding multiple portfolios, affecting governance.

Majhi, never the natural leader of the party in Odisha, will need all his political skill and acumen to survive the storm brewing in his government.