By D.N. Singh
Odisha politics as usual suffers from a cyclic dearth of issues. And slowly it is getting boring, even though the polls are round the corner. After an initial spurt of eventful brick-batting now it all appear slip into a course of monotony. Either readers of newspapers or for television viewers the stock of regular dissemination goes chronically with worn-out pledges, charges and counter charges.
Lets look at the present buzz nationally. Obviously the Pulwama which still enjoys the centrestage and there is a disproportionate political churning of the issue through debates and speeches. Lightly speaking, it is yet again a political trapeze as visible from Odisha.
Everyday, a viewer gets amused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi rather routinely spewing vitriol on Pakistan and assuring the nation about a to-be-taken retaliatory step to teach the habitual perpetrator a lesson. A fabulous mix of noise and rhetoric pending the real action.
Supposedly the other trapeze player is Naveen Patnaik. Cool and composed, fairly distanced from the burning national issues, gets on to his chopper and reaches one district headquarters where a good crowd is made to wait and cheer .
And he keeps playing up the schemes like PEETHA or Kalia with the insurmountable ease and confidence, and absolutely unfazed by the venomous critiques of either the local Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress. And he goes on.
These are the two signature visual doses the people of Odisha have to be content with. Because, on the side lines, there is very little to be engaged with.
When the BJP and the Congress, interestingly, the two disinclined enemies of the Biju Janata Dal, go on with the repeat opprobrium like ‘corrupt’, ‘inert’ and autocratic sort of rebukes, the BJD chief usually pays no heed to the abuses.
Besides that if Patnaik has to fear a little from someone, it was the combo of ousted BJD leaders who have made many attempts in the recent past and made a few concerted attempts to stitch a unity. Yet none of them have been able to raise the hood to scare Patnaik, let alone bite.
With time passing and there being hardly any breather before the polls , the group of adversaries now look heading towards a dumping yard of political obsolescence. Regardless of the ability each of them had in the past, now none of them is ready to walk with their head on the shoulders and rather indulge in a kind of pinch-hitter activity and get retired hurt.
