Heartland defeat rekindles BJP’s hopes for victory in Odisha in 2019

BHUBANESWAR: Assuming that the verdict in the recent assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan was a vote for change, BJP hopes it will serve as a template to oust the Naveen Patnaik government, which has been in power for 18 years now, in next year’s election.
“The recent assembly election results have a strong common message.There is a mood against those in power for a long time. In Odisha also, the party in power for a long time will fall,” Union petroleum minister and state BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan said. “The next election in Odisha will be the one to seek reply from the Naveen government on what it has done in all these years,” he added.
The BJP sees itself as the principal opposition to the BJD, having wrested the position from Congress with good performances in last year’s panchayat polls and the Bijepur by-election, where despite trailing the ruling party, it had managed to increase its vote share considerably. The saffron outfit feels that in the forthcoming election the anti-BJD votes would fall in its kitty.
Both in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, BJP was in power for 15 years. In Madhya Pradesh, before Shivraj Singh Chouhan took over in 2005, Uma Bharti (2003-2004) and Babulal Gaur (2004-2005) were BJP chief ministers. Similarly, Raman Singh’s reign as Chhattisgarh chief minister started in 2003.
Naveen, who has been governing Odisha since 2000, is the second-longest serving chief minister after Sikkim’s Pawan Kumar Chamling, who has been in power since 1994.
On the face of it, defeat in crucial states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan has dealt a blow to BJP cadres here, but the party has adopted the “vote for change” strategy as it looks to conquer Odisha as part of its look east politics.
The supposed Narendra Modi wave had given Odisha the miss in 2014 when BJP could win only one out of 21 Lok Sabha seats and 10 of the 147 assembly seats. But given the recent electoral setbacks and the possibility of losing a number of Lok Sabha seats in north India, BJP has already been putting a lot of focus on eastern and north-eastern states.
And as part of the process, Prime Minister Modi is expected to kickstart the party’s campaign on December 24 — his third visit to the state this year — when he is scheduled to address a public rally at Khurda.
BJP is likely to target young voters as agents of change. “You have seen the same government since your birth, but you have not seen much development. It would be our appeal to first time voters, born in 2000 when Naveen took his first oath as CM,” BJP state vice-president Sameer Mohanty said.
Strategically, BJP may bank on BJD rebels to upset the ruling party applecart a bit. BJD may struggle to contain internal rift because of too many ticket aspirants for Lok Sabha and assembly elections. “BJP may rope in BJD rebels in certain coastal pockets where the party still doesn’t have a strong organizational presence,” party insiders felt.
BJP also hopes to make strong inroads among women, considered Naveen’s key vote bank, through the goodwill generated by the subsidized cooking gas scheme, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, steered by Dharmendra-led petroleum ministry. The recent infighting within state Congress ought to be music for BJP, which hopes people would chose the saffron outfit as an alternative to the Naveen government.
Though the faction-ridden Congress division in the state has received a fresh lease of life with the recent victory in the heartland, what is music to BJP’s ears here is that top Congress leaders have not stopped fighting with each other. Former Union minister Srikant Jena has directly challenged the leadership of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, by speaking on the latter’s alleged involvement in the mining scam.
To woo the farmers’ community, who have played crucial role in the recent verdict, the BJP, just like the Congress, has already announced that it will waive farm loans if voted to power.