By Priya Ranjan Sahu
The Biju Janata Dal on Friday announced the names of two party candidates – party’s IT cell chairman and spokesperson Amar Patnaik, and spokesperson Sasmit Patra – for the by-elections for three Rajya Sabha seat.
However, Odisha chief minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik sprang a surprise by announcing that the state’s ruling party would support the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate Ashwini Vaishnav for the third Rajya Sabha seat. With just 23 MLAs, the BJP could not have made its nominee win the elections.
Polling for the three seats, vacated by BJD’s Pratap Deb, Achyuta Samant and Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, will be held on July 5.
“The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and home minister (Amit Shah) spoke to me. We will support the candidature of Ashwini Vaishnav,” Patnaik told news persons.
Vaishnav is a former IAS officer of Odisha cadre who served as collector of Cuttack and Balasore districts. He later went on central deputation and became private secretary to Atal Behari Vajpayee when he was the prime minister. Vaishnav worked with Vajpayee even after the latter bowed out of power in 2004.
When the BJD and BJP were coalition partners from 2000 to 2009, Vaishnav, an IIT alumnus, reportedly played a role in coordinating them. So the BJD’s support to Vaishnav’s candidature at this juncture points at a new equation between the BJD and BJP.
It shows that after a bitter electoral fight both the BJD and BJP have come closer for various common interests and compulsions. The BJP needs more MPs in Rajya Sabha where it still does not have a majority, while the BJD may push for more central funds as well as the demand for special category state for Odisha. As a goodwill gesture, the BJP may gift away to the BJD two assembly seats – Bijepur and Patkura – for which by-elections will be held soon.
Besides, by gifting the BJP a Rajya Sabha seat, the BJD seem to have rendered the national party’s state leadership helpless.
Such bonhomie between the BJD and BJP post elections have put former BJD leaders like Baijayant Panda and Damodar Rout, who had joined the BJP before the elections, in a tight spot. Veteran leader Bijoy Mohapatra, who resigned from the BJP and then rejoined it before elections, too seem to be lost in the way as there is no certainty that he will get support from his own party when the by-election for Patkura is held.
Such a scenario leaves Odisha virtually without an opposition. The BJD has now 112 assembly seats while the BJP and Congress have 23 and nine respectively.
But with the BJD and BJP getting closer, the Congress still has a chance to act like a true opposition despite its single-digit strength and regain its lost ground. But will the Congress, which lost its second position to the BJP, wake up from its slumber?
