Coming to power in Odisha seems to have surprised the BJP almost as much as the state’s media that kept talking of the invincibility of former CM Naveen Patnaik. And now the bets are on whom BJP will anoint as chief minister of the state.
Going by the trend of BJP appointing unknowns to the top position, Nayab Singh Saini became the Haryana CM with an OBC and RSS background. Mohan Yadav was made the CM of Madhya Pradesh. He is from the OBC community with a strong RSS background. And Bhajan Lal Sharma, a Brahmin, took over as CM of Rajasthan. None of them were big names nor were they seen as top contenders.
But in Odisha there are some over-riding factors.
The BJP does not want to let an MP become the CM because it needs each and every MP in the overhead count while leading a coalition government.
So, that factor puts a question mark against the names of Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram. Both are elected MPs with a lot of experience.
Jual has many reasons to celebrate his 6th win in seven attempts, especially after he announced that 2024 would be his last electoral contest from Sundargarh.
Dharmendra Pradhan has worked with the central government for the last decade. Apart from this, he has been the main face of BJP's Odia identity campaign in Odisha.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Dharmendra Pradhan defeated BJD's Pranab Prakash Das from Sambalpur by a margin of over 1 lakh votes. He has completed two terms as a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh before 2024.
Besides, Pradhan has been the party's election in-charge in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Odisha. His background and profile, including the administrative experience, is seen to give him an edge. Pradhan's seat, Sambhalpur, is considered one of the safest seats in the state for BJP.
But will the BJP risk going in for a by-election in Odisha if either Pradhan or Oram are chosen? This is a main rider after the recent Lok Sabha elections.
The other crucial factor is the BJP wants an Odiya, son of the soil, to become the CM. It is aware of the pushback Naveen Patnaik often received for his inability to speak fluently in Odiya. And quite a few state observers told me that Naveen really did not care either.
Manmohan Samal, state BJP president, is another name being considered but he suffered defeat in Chandbali segment to BJD's Byomakesh Ray. Suresh Pujari’s name is also in the fray.
BJP swept the Odisha Assembly elections, winning 78 of the total 147 seats, bringing an end to Naveen Patnaik's 24-year regime. In the Lok Sabha polls, too, the BJP decimated the Opposition in Odisha as Naveen Patnaik's BJD drew a blank. The BJP won 21 seats as the Congress managed to send one Lok Sabha MP from Odisha.
Another interesting name is that of Girish Chandra Murmu. He is a retired 1985 batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre and was principal secretary to Narendra Modi during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Murmu's career took off in 2004 when he was made joint secretary of the Gujarat Home Department, which was headed by Amit Shah and directly supervised by Narendra Modi. He was given the task of handling the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
He is the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the external auditor of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He is also the chairman of the United Nations Panel of External Auditors and the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. He was the first LG of Jammu and Kashmir. He belongs to a Santal family of Mayurbhanj district in Odisha.
However, after the backlash against Naveen Patnaik’s BJD for running the state through bureaucrats, GC Murmu might have an obstacle to vault over.
The oath-taking ceremony for Odisha's new CM will be held at Bhubaneswar on June 10. The ceremony will be held at the Janata Maidan.
In Delhi, separate meetings of the MLAs and all the MPs of Odisha were fixed with the BJP’s top brass. All the newly-elected MPs from the state are already in Delhi.
The BJP parliamentary board would take a call on the new chief minister of Odisha. BJP state unit chief Manmohan Samal and Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayana Mishra, both members of the BJP parliamentary board, are already in Delhi.
25 years later, with a new dawn breaking, fresh faces, a radically different regime would be seeking Lord Jagannath's blessings.
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