Samikhsya Bureau
So at last Baijayant Panda has made a niche for himself just days after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. Now he wears the mantle of a national vice president of the party and a spokesman too, an old assignment he had successfully accomplished when in the Biju Janata Dal.
However, it may throw up a few questions as whether his political outreach would be contained to that or he would play an active role in the State which he claimed to have nourished. His pledge has always remained to be a crucial factor to bring change in Odisha politics. Specifically after his disillusionment with the Naveen dispensation after a bloody good hiatus of 22 years.
Sources in the BJP confide that his joining the party in BJP in Delhi and being welcomes by the Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan besides few others has raised a few eyebrows in the upper cadre of the party. More so, because, the sources add, when the party national president Amit Shah was present in the party office or in Delhi, and a tall leader like Panda was ushered in by the state leaders. Political observers can read a few things between the lines. Was the plan earlier different for choosing Delhi as the venue? If it was the state leaders including Pradhan, then the venue could have been in Bhubaneswar also.
Known for his flamboyant style of functioning, Panda may not be content with the claustrophobic political air of Delhi and would rather prefer to regain his political moorings in Odisha in general and Kendrapada to be specific. His new innings might get confined to the television debate monologues until and unless he ceases to be a Delhi based spokesman only.
But the bigger question is the BJP in Odisha is undisputedly rests on a coaster named Dharmendra Pradhan, who may not be comfortable with any other alien entity to disturb his chemistry or stake a claim on the party’s poster. Pradhan, for sure, enjoys an invisible mandate of the national leadership to remain the cornerstone till the polls are over. On the other hand, Panda, who, many times in the past, has shown the inklings for a bigger role in the state, may not relish the second-fiddle character for long. Not to be unfair with the truth, politics in Odisha BJP is going to be interesting yet not bereft of the inevitable jitters for the state leadership. Whatever is going to emerge in the days to come but, Panda has undertaken a roller-coaster ride.
