By D.N. Singh
Politics makes strange bed fellows, but politics also makes surprising exits and politics also springs equally surprising comebacks.
To be fair with the situation that presents itself just before the final phase of polling in coastal parts, mainly Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapada, a surprise seems to be in the waiting.
After closely watching the course of the electioneering in Jagatsinghpur, mainly in Paradeep and Erasama, one can easily notice that something, which otherwise would have been one of the most interesting fireworks, is indeed missing.
To be candid, at this point, what the poll-watchers miss are the acerbics from Damodar Rout, an erstwhile BJD heavyweight, now a candidate from the Bharatiya Janata Party for the Erasama assembly seat. Since he had left the Biju Janata Dal, his venomous digs at Naveen Patnaik were demonstrably the most deadly ones never ever had been mouthed by any deserter .
However, for whatever reason, Rout’s barbing now limits itself into a kind of edginess from a person who always rejoiced the aspersions at Naveen.
Things now appear to have undergone a kind of uneasiness alluding at a possibility that either he (Rout) has been cowed down by his son, Sambit’s candidature from Paradeep or it signals at a possibility of his discomfiture he in in being in the saffron camp or Rout may stage a comeback to the BJD sooner or later.
It needs no elaboration that Rout, right from his days with late Biju babu, had remained as one of the most frontal assaulters of the BJP. Even at occasions after his exit from the BJD in September 2018, Rout had the political observers believe that come-what-may he would not join the BJP.
However, he joined the BJP but his political dispositions post the sad demise of his wife, then the visit of chief minister to pay condolences, did manifest signs of moral agitation within Rout.
And after his son was named as the party candidate from Paradeep, Rout’s fretfulness could not escape the attention of political pundits.
Despite being the head of the BJP’s campaign committee, which naturally brings him under a moral obligation to play the most attacking role against Naveen Patnaik, Rout’s sluggish participation in campaigns or the lack of hard posturing in his campaign in Paradeep does indicate at a change in him. It is really a peculiar situation that Rout finds himself in. ‘Running with the hare and hunting with the hound’ may perhaps be the right parable for his kind of predicament.
