By D.N. Singh
The prelude has started and it is barely two to three months left we see the political bandwagon officially jump into the ring saturating the air with hopes and promises. The common man at the bottom of the strata is only facing the challenges which the politicians can never face.
Let us take a look at the things going on in a state like Odisha, which till recent years was not among the headline-making ones. But, now it has become focused not because it has become politically potential but has become a soft target essentially because it is a society that is little unsuspecting where the dividing line between the leaders and the people is too pronounced. And the voices of the people are often less intense.
It is no more the time of earlier politicians like Nabakrushna Choudhry or other leaders who never peddled lies or took the masses for granted with pipe-dreams.
The incumbent chief minister is working overtime, rather desperately, to garner favour more by tossing up schemes and dreams through lollipops like concern for women proposing 33 per cent reservation or PEETHA and Kalias. While the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) and the Congress seem addicted to one monologue that is 19 years of misrule and corruption by the Biju Janata Dal regime. And the BJP, especially, unwilling to accept the fact that out of the 19 years of ‘misrule’ they were active partners for nine years in the fallacy and always look for escape route with unsound arguments in their defense.
It is an unalienable reality that politicians change colour at the drop of a hat and what went on between the BJP and BJD over sharing the moral or malaise of politics is already history.
Several other splinter groups, conceptually brewed by leaders inimical to Naveen Patnaik still fail to make the impression that they matter. The BJD spokesmen are ever-ready with the stock phrases to mock at such opposition leaders who remain confined to statements only.
Like in many other states, in Odisha also the middle class has come to the forefront of the issues related to society and even politics. It plays a pivotal role in pandering to the whims of the upper class which only cares about its own pleasure and safety. It is the same middle class which tries to lord over the lower class and as a result it plays an influential role in politics also.
Regardless of the recent schemes launched by the ruling party in Odisha, still the principal worries are healthcare, education, employment for youth, social unrest and many such primary issues the government tries to address very late in the day.
It is the people at the bottom strata, which faces the menace of all disorders, be it dust or smoke, drought or flood, disease or other distress. It realises the challenges but can hardly think. And that is left to the upper or middle class which is pathetically detached from the bottom realities.
Now with the election time getting nearer it is again the lower class population who can play a big role as they did in 2000 in Odisha when the honeymoon of the middle and upper class failed. This must be taken into consideration by any power seeking party and BJD in particular, that complacency can be dangerous notwithstanding the intellectual lacking among the common voter or the lower class .
