By D.N. Singh
Closer comes the time for the general election, politics grows to be more spicy and sometimes entertaining. But there remains a fear if sloganeering tends to be worn-out ones or monotonous then that hardly registers in the people’s mind.
In Odisha, it is getting bit entertaining and puzzling too. One starts with a very common despair of the oppositions here and that is about Naveen Patnaik’s tacit thaw with either the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party. A friend had recently posted the amusing analogy in Fb which makes Patnaik as the coin of ‘Sholay’ as if Naveen is with both. Which draws its comparison from BJP saying Patnaik enjoys a cosy relationship with the state Congress and the Congress claims that there is an unwritten agreement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Patnaik. Which is a peculiar position enjoyed by the latter.
The recent invective poured on him by both the major opposition parties are no less entertaining. BJP president Amit Shah likened him to a defunct electric transformer which presage not only a change but uprooting of the equipment and consigned to the Bay of Bengal.
Making defeatism as the buzz the Odisha Congress has been harping on the point of despair and despair of 19 years crying for change.
Taking a departure from passivity, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has relentlessly reduced Patnaik to a remote driven robot with the control with Modi who make the latter sit up and down as per political exigencies.
Which turns out to be a political paradox and Patnaik , as cool as never before, goes on with a new rabble rousing ‘Apana mane khushi ta, mun bhi bahut khushi’ (are you all happy, I am also happy). What is enviable is his composure and he does not even react to his most rumoured political bête noire Dharmendra Pradhan who keep coaxing him with the repeat monologue like ‘inert and unworthy’.
Patnaik’s silence is apparently more painful than the rivals’ filibustering and he keeps trying to beat them through a slew of welfare schemes day in and day out. That does not mean that he has no fear. The steps are multi-pronged and can be viewed as defensive recourse to counter the central sponsored schemes.
Although not complimentary to each other threadbare yet there may be a mutual fear between the both in case of any crisis after the polls. But the schemes are being spawned out so rapidly that the common man gets caught in a web of confusion.
Dislodging the BJD, the BJP and Congress know, is no easy task. Whatever the likes of Amit Shah or Rahul Gandhi say but both the national parties know that to gain a sharp cutting edge at this juncture is bit difficult to sear through the regional bastions including Odisha.
