By D.N. Singh
It is for long that one heard about the once rumoured face of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Odisha, Aparajita Sarangi. She had in fact landed here with a bang, ubiquitous by her presence and appearance in television channels. At many vital junctions within the capital city and outside, besides the huge posters showing her with the Prime Minister and the party president Amit Shah, a lot of chatters were there in the political grapevines assuming her to be the next face of the BJP in the state.
Known for her text-book style of administrative functioning she tried to inlay her political persona with the same pattern, perhaps, to impress her bosses in Delhi. However, her discomfiture with the party’s local leadership could not hide itself in the blaze of media overplay and self-posturing. At times, she was in her own way treading through the rigors of politics those do not come easy.
The craze for this self-styled bureaucrat turned politician slowly became less intense and perhaps then the realisation must have dawned upon her that the uncertain pathways to politics cannot be left to any restorative isolation, like a government officer, but one has to play a role to remain in the count. And she chose the role of being a conduit and, as some reports say, has preferred to be among the mass being present in ordinary public places like tea shops telling the people about what made her to be in the realm of politics and the values and ideals the BJP eschews.
‘Cha khatti’ (sittings at tea shops) is a new nomenclature heard in politics of these days when leaders, either shorn of any mass appeal or the aspiring ones, try to be among the common men at such joints. The purpose is obvious. She has, reportedly, taken resort in similar situations unaware of what goes on in the state headquarters’ corridors. She is even conspicuously missing from the high voltage public meetings.
There are two political takeaways. Either she could not get along well with the local leaders and chose to build her own aura or, there is something, which is not visible — blessings of the godfathers — which frugally pays back in politics. To remain in posters is different than being a poster-boy or poster-girl!
