‘Politics makes strange bed-fellows’. goes the saying and there is nothing new in this . It is happening every other day in politics.  But in Odisha this time around there are more theatrics popping themselves up into this horizon. When the two bellicose parties BJD and BJP are engaged in a kind of day to day ‘tu-tu-me-me’ ,  the real opposition party, the Congress, not only suffers from a chronic ailment of erosion at the top level but few of its  middle and lower order cadres have gone to a  shockingly unacceptable extremes  adding to the woes  . One by one many such guy-ropes have started going off-the-hooks  .  Its unlikely that the party high command is any more in a position to clear the clouds of a possible dissipation before 2019.

What must be worrying the Odisha Congress today is that the family of late Lalatendu Vidyadhar Mohapatra, popularly known as Lulu Mohapatra, is joining the BJP on Saturday, which includes his daughter Upasana Mohapatra. This obviously is viewed as a paradigm shift of focus in the Congress party which for decades remained the bitter most critic of the BJP for its alleged communal approach in politics.

Odisha Congress party and the youth force of this party in particular had always acted as a  counter-weight to other parties and helped strengthening the grass-root level vote bank right from the 80s and in this effort the role of  Lulu Mohapatra, who had demonstrated the required doggedness to instil unity , can not be written off,  barring some amateurish phases when the party’s youth had allegedly resorted to sensationalism in its political activities. Often bordering on alleged criminalization of politics. It was, perhaps,  sometimes, adolescent fantasy which erases political sobriety that the youth force in every political party suffers from. Not only Congress.

However, Lulu Mohapatra’s loyalty towards the party  remained unquestioned and his name for quite some years  was synonymous with the Congress for whatever reason. At no point of time Lulu Mohapatra , regardless of his health problems and the way he was allegedly neglected by the party,  he  never dithered nor showed  any    sign  of role-reversal or joining any other party. He was a staunch loyalist.
A diminishing popularity within the party forced him to a state where he was torn  between a failing health and a defeatist complex. But he always tried to camouflage it by sheer guts when he had many detractors within and few friends.

This has happened today in Bhubaneswar when the family of Mohapatra left the ‘hands’ of the Congress and laid its hand to Lotus at a mega ceremony .

Upasana, in fact, had remained a constant company of her father for many   years in various political events including campaigns. She was perhaps being assiduously mentored by her father for politics .  After her father’s death she took the direct plunge into the ring  campaigning for the Congress in the  last panchayat polls, obviously the sympathy factor being in the back of her mind. However, the Congress lost in Brahmagiri rather miserably. Which had upset her terribly.     

Before this also some Congress  leaders, including the former chief minister of Odisha, Giridhar Gamang,  and down the cadre have joined the BJP. The question that comes into mind is, do these leaders enjoy their position there. Or it is mere genuflection ?
Upasana is hardly 20 plus and she does have the fire within like her father who can not subjugate for long .

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