Sarat Rout has never been more excited. The long-time BJP worker from Nilagiri Assembly constituency, under the Balasore Lok Sabha seat in northern Odisha, has no doubt that his party will upset the BJD applecart and come to power on its own for the first time in the state. “When Modi ji invited the people to the swearing-in ceremony of the BJP government on June 10 during his election rally in Berhampur on June 6, it was not an empty boast. Canny politician that he is, he has stuck his neck out and predicted a win for the party because he has read the mood of the people and the yearning for change among them,” he says.
Some 400 kms down south, Chittaranjan Gouda, another committed grassroots worker of the saffron party in Gopalpur Assembly segment of Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, shares Rout’s optimism. While, Samal, an attendee at Modi’s Berhampur rally, says; “There are unmistakable signs that fortress BJD is crumbling in Ganjam district,” he says emphatically. Ganjam, the ‘home’ district of Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has indeed been a fortress for the ruling party in Odisha till now.
Across the state, the mood among BJP workers is upbeat. They are sweating it out under the hot May sun because they feel the party is in with a realistic chance of winning the Assembly elections this time, apart from improving significantly on its tally of eight out of 21 parliamentary seats in the state. And the major reason for the enthusiasm among BJP cadres is the aggressive tone and tenor of Modi – and all other central leaders of the party - while campaigning in the state, which has dispelled the widely prevalent impression that the party has a secret understanding with the ruling BJD to a great extent. On Sunday, the Prime Minister arrived in Bhubaneswar on his third visit to the state in the last two weeks, held a road show in Puri on Monday morning before addressing two campaign rallies in Angul and Cuttack. He is scheduled to come again for the fourth and last round of elections on June 1. His deputy Amit Shah too has already come thrice to the state. Hardly a day passes without some central leader or the other campaigning in the state. The party has clearly smelt blood and is zeroing in for the kill.
BJD Confident of Yet Another Victory
But BJD leaders and workers alike poohpooh the upbeat mood in the BJP camp. “Didn’t Amit Shah boast about winning 120 seats last time too? What happened? The party could manage just 23. Modi magic doesn’t work here. The only magic that works here is Naveen magic. And this will be proved once again on June 4,” says Pratap Keshari Deb, a cabinet minister in the Naveen Patnaik government.
Kapilendra Behera, a BJD worker in Saraskana village under Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha constituency, is of the view that the regular visits of the BJP top leadership are only to boost the morale of their party workers here. “They are trying to sell the fact that they made Droupadi Murmu, a daughter of the soil, the President of India, to win votes. While all of us are proud that a daughter of our district has become the President, the people will vote on the basis of the work done on the ground by the BJD government and not because Droupadi Murmu was made the head of the state,” he says.
Kalyan Sinha, a senior journalist based in Baripada, the headquarters of the district, concurs. He feels it will be difficult for the BJP to retain the six seats it has in the outgoing Assembly. To press his point home, he points to the fact that the saffron party, which had won an incredible 49 out of the 54 zilla parishad seats in the district in the 2017 panchayat elections, drew a blank in 2022.
BJP Making Inroads
Most political commentators in the state believe that while the ruling BJD, seeking a sixth straight term in office, is set to suffer a dent in both its vote share (44.71% in 2019) and number of seats (112 in 2019) – primarily due to the backlash against the projection of VK Pandian, Naveen Patnaik’s former private secretary who is now the second most important leader in the party after Naveen – it may not be big enough to dethrone Naveen and his party. “There are two reasons for this. First, Naveen still retains his popularity. And second, the series of welfare schemes his government has implemented have genuinely benefited the people at the grassroots level,” says veteran journalist Rabi Das. The BJD has been aggressively pushing the line that all these schemes will be withdrawn if the BJP comes to power and this too has played its part in the voters remaining beholden to the BJD.
However, most political analysts are of the opinion that the BJP will improve its tally in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections compared to the last elections mainly because of the growing popularity of Modi in the state.
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