Small Congress brigade raises a loud pitch in Odisha politics

Battle for space

Small is big: The Congress is trying hard to prove this in Odisha, where voters have almost written it off as a no-hoper. The party has suddenly awakened from a decades-long slumber in the eastern state and could do so with its meagre presence in the Assembly. Ironically, the person tasked with invigorating the Congress, state unit president Bhakta Charan Das, had fought the party tooth and nail in his youth. 

Once believed to be invincible, Congress' fortunes have declined steadily in the last 25 years, thanks to factionalism and leadership crisis. Infighting has been the principal cause of the party's downfall, relegating it to a distant third position in the current Assembly. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) too has played its part in destabilising the Odisha unit. 

The schism in the party ranks was all the more visible in the run-up to the 2024 general elections when leaders tried to sabotage the prospects of their colleagues. Moreover, the party was severely cash-strapped. In short, the Congress was not in the reckoning in the state barring the south-western belt. Not surprisingly, it scored a dismal 14 out of 147 seats in the Assembly.

However, some of the party's recent activities have shored up its stock in the people's minds. This is because the new leadership has, to a great extent, provided the much-needed impetus to the rank and file to fight back to regain the party's lost status.

The party was in the limelight during the just-concluded budget session of the Assembly where it stole a march on the main opposition, Biju Janata Dal (BJD). It all started when the Congress MLAs vociferously demanded a statement from Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on the rising atrocities against women in the state. This demand was not heeded. And both the Congress and the ruling BJP stuck to their guns.

The 14-member Congress brigade literally brought the House proceedings to a grinding halt through persistent agitations day after day, forcing Speaker Surama Padhi to suspend them for seven days.

Not to be outsmarted by the unprecedented move by the Speaker, which attracted widespread condemnation including from the BJD, the Congress legislators proceeded to stage a night-long dharna on the floor of the House until they were physically thrown out by the security staff in the middle of the night. Allegedly, some of them were manhandled and were injured. In a rare demonstration of unity, almost all top state leaders of the party, along with a large number of workers, participated in the subsequent 'Assembly gherao' rally which ended in a pitched battle with the police, injuring many from both sides.

Odisha Assembly has witnessed far worse pandemonium and disruptions during the Congress rule, but never did any Speaker suspend all the members of a legislature party at one stroke. For Bhakta Charan Das, a former Union minister, there could not have been a better opportunity to rejuvenate the hopeless party cadres and unite them over an emotive issue like atrocities against women. Its show of strength has not only helped the party regain some trust of the people but also put the BJD in a bind.

The BJD's predicament is obvious because it does not want to play a very aggressive opposition role. Leader of the Opposition Naveen Patnaik is not known for this quality as he has always played the role of an aloof politician and someone who believes in complete reticence. Is Naveen Patnaik's soft posture and policy of playing a 'constructive role' as the opposition leader helping the Congress hijack the BJD's position as the main opposition party in the Assembly? Many agree that BJD legislators are clueless about the party's stand against the government. No matter what one thinks, historically politics is all about protests and making noises. These two ingredients create a surefire recipe for success in politics, and leaders emerge from it.

A lack of projection of the right leader with complete authority has been one of the key reasons why Congress has been faring badly in the state. Along with this, undisciplined leaders, who often put their vested interests ahead of the party, pushed the Congress to a corner in state politics, leaving it with a weak grassroots-level structure. On the other hand, the BJP, which hardly had any standing in the state, turned the table amid all odds in 2024, thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Look East Policy'.

Bhakta Charan Das, who started his political career as a foot soldier in the 'Sampurna Kranti' of Jayaprakash Narayan during the Emergency, is the man assigned to rebuild the Congress in Odisha. He has threatened to take the issue of rising crimes against women to the village and block levels by way of 'mashal yatras' in the coming days. He faces a tough task, going by the inherent factionalism in the party. Das, a fighter, can possibly bring a change in the Congress' fortunes if the AICC strengthens his hands by discouraging divisive politics in its Odisha unit.

(Author is an Odisha-based journalist)