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Is Naveen era inching close to finish by BJD-BJP supposed alliance ?
- | Sunday | 10th March, 2024
BY D N Singh
Politics of alliance between the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party although has been hogging the headlines since the last few days but there is an air of fear looming over the both. That is to go ahead or not an apprehension haunting both.
Who volunteered for a pre-poll truce?
With a comfortable 114 seats in the state Assembly in 2019 the BJD and the chief minister Naveen Patnaik in particular still seem riding high on the crest of popularity for a record 6th term in the 2024 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
Even in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 the BJD was way ahead of its main rival the BJP with 12 seats while the BJP was 8 leaving the Congress with just one seat.
Then why does this tacit alliance become a necessity? A question the BJD has not answered yet.
Nor have the Modi led NDA made it clear as to why it has opted for an understanding with the BJD. Is the BJP shaky about its own position over both the Assembly and Lok Sabha winning prospects in 2024?
The poll watchers feel that somewhere and somehow the BJP or the PM aim at a slice from the cake in Odisha to support the slogan by the PM that ‘ abki baar, 400 paar’. Be it a mind game or not but the bargain sounded by the BJP, perhaps, has not gone well with the BJD.
Sources in Delhi confide that the BJP high command is insisting upon the BJD to facilitate the situation so that the BJP may contest in at least 14 Lok Sabha seats, leaving 7 for the BJD.
But what has become an Achilles heel for Naveen is the bargain over the Assembly seat adjustments. Sources say that the BJP has signaled to fight in at least 55 Assembly seats thus leaving the BJD to remain satisfied to contest in just 92 seats.
From 114 Assembly seats in 2019 down to fighting in 92 seats can be a stunning marginalisation that the BJD is not ready to digest.
In a way the stage is being readied by the BJP, feel poll observers, so that the latter can have the level playing strength in the Vidhan Sabha and a few ministerial berths as well. Which might, in the long run, pale the Naveen aura substantially and keep Naveen and his party shackled by the whims of the saffron camp.
A situation in Odisha may arise akin to what has happened in Bihar where Nitish Kumar now has to adhere to the dictates of the BJP.
Naveen at 78 may not choose to negotiate through the nagging ordeals of Central probe agencies knocking at the BJD doors over the party leaders’ suspected involvement in an alleged mega chit-fund scam and mining scam.
Perhaps, there lies the major reason why the BJD is not only quiet over the bargain but Naveen is ready to tread into a zone where his once invincibility may be over after 24 years.
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