Naveen checkmates BJP's Hindutva juggernaut in Odisha

BJP lacks a leader in Odisha to challenge Patnaik

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s ambition to become an alternative to the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha seems to be gradually shattering, putting its 'look east' campaign in jeopardy.

In the five Assembly bypolls in Odisha after the 2019 general elections, the BJP could not win a single seat. The ruling BJD retained four seats and snatched one from the BJP, with the BJD increasing its vote share while that of the BJP has declined.

In the recently held bypoll to the Brajarajnagar Assembly seat on June 3, the BJD secured over 60 per cent of the votes while the BJP nominee lost her security deposit. The Congress, which has been out of power in Odisha since 2000, was able to fight back to rise to the second position that the saffron party had occupied in the previous bypolls.

Also read: Congress emerges closest rival of BJD in Odisha bypolls

Interestingly, Brajarajnagar forms part of the Bargarh Lok Sabha seat, where the BJP had registered a victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, the party put up a dismal performance this time despite Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and several other senior party leaders campaigning across the constituency for two days.

The BJP's decline in Odisha started a few months after the 2019 polls when riding the Narendra Modi wave, the party had displaced the Congress as the main opposition and bagged eight of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 23 of the 147 Assembly seats, which was a record for it in the state.

When the BJP secured 38.4 per cent of votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 32.5 per cent of votes in the 2019 Assembly polls, the two elections were held simultaneously, it was felt that the party had emerged as the BJD's alternative. However, the loss of votes it has suffered in the Assembly elections compared to the Lok Sabha indicates that the party does not have any leader in the state whom the people can trust.

On the other hand, Patnaik's popularity among those who voted for the Assembly increased further in 2019, even though he sought re-election for a fifth consecutive term. Most voters did not accept the BJP's projection of Pradhan as Patnaik's alternative. Pradhan started withdrawing from projecting himself as the challenger thereafter.

Months after the 2019 polls, Patnaik mended fences with the BJP's central leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had likened his government to a burnt transformer in the run-up to the polls. At their request, Patnaik also gave a Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP, for which they had no strength in the state, and their party candidate Ashwini Vaishnaw went on to become the Railway Minister. In both Houses of Parliament, the BJD also supported the Modi government on key legislation.

Patnaik realised the weakness of his party on which the BJP had emerged as his party's main rival. Since the BJP got much of its votes from the supporters of the Congress, Patnaik, who had inducted several leaders from the Congress before the elections, continued to bring more leaders from that party. The latest induction has been Pradeep Majhi, former MP from the tribal-dominated Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency, until recently, the working president of the Congress in the state.

Sensing that the BJP, which was playing the Hindutva card across the country, may take up such issues in Odisha, known for its numerous ancient temples, Patnaik started upgrading and re-developing the Lord Jagannath temple in Puri, Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar and many other major religious shrines in different corners of the state.

Patnaik's efforts to keep the BJP's Hindutva politics at bay got the much-needed fillip recently when the Supreme Court dismissed two PILs that described the Jagannath temple Parikrama project work as "unauthorised and illegal". The petitioners had claimed that the work had desecrated and destroyed the archaeological remains of the 12th-century heritage site. Dismissing the claims made in the petitions, the Supreme Court ruled that the redevelopment work was in the public interest.

Before the apex court, the state government submitted that no archaeological remains had been either disturbed or destroyed during the redevelopment work. The court order stated that such petitions that stall development work should be nipped in the bud and ended the controversy within no time.

The ambitious Parikrama project aims to develop areas adjacent to the Jagannath Temple by creating an unobstructed 75-metre corridor around the temple's outer wall. It was launched by Patnaik last year.

After the matter went to court, BJP MP from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat, Aparajita Sarangi and BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, who had unsuccessfully contested from the Puri Lok Sabha seat in 2019, had tried their best to derail the Parikrama project by making it a public issue.

Coming to BJP's decline, in the panchayat and urban local body elections held earlier this year, the BJP performed poorly there too, and the BJD swept the polls. The BJD's votes share in both the rural and urban elections crossed 50 per cent, a new phenomenon for the state.

The BJP finished a distant second in the rural polls and won just 42 zilla parishad seats, while the BJD formed parishads in all 30 districts by bagging 766 out of 852 seats. The saffron party also suffered a crushing defeat in the urban local body polls. The BJD won in 95 urban centres and the BJP in just six.

The BJP, with weak leadership in the state, is in disarray. Some BJP leaders who unsuccessfully contested elections in 2019 have also joined the BJD recently. After debacles in rural and urban polls and the latest bypoll, the party now faces an uphill task ahead of the next general elections.

(The writer is a journalist based in Bhubaneswar)