Will it really help BJD save its fort?

By AK SAHOO

Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has begun the exercise to rescue his from the morass of decaying popularity the party is suffering from now. He has embarked upon interaction with the party’s newly elected panchayat representatives to get first hand feedback on the reason for poor show in the rural polls and seeking their suggestion how to revamp the party.

The first day began with interactions with representatives of Koraput and Jajpur districts. Not much is known how successfully Naveen, who is unable to speak Odia without referring to his Odia- speech- written-in-roman-script paper, – exchanged his views with the participants.

However, a few questions that are being raised in political circles include:  Is it a late recharge or timely batting by Naveen Patnaik to save his party from further erosion? Will it steer the party clear out of its present crisis? Or the BJD’s supemo’s interaction exercise with panchayat representatives that began on Sunday is just a cosmetic surgery that he will just end up in suppressing the pain for the time being and ultimately lead towards the eventuality?

Or, is this in true sense the real time accurate surgery with exact panacea to treat the dreaded disease of people’s antipathy that the party is suffering from these days?

As political commentators ponder over these queries, the BJD leaders, mostly of the breed brought up by Pyarimohan Mohapatra, are happy that at least the leader has finally woken up to interact with party leaders. The exercise, these leaders think, – would go long way to check the fast rise of the BJP in the state.

They contend that Naveen still enjoys the same amount of the love and affection what he did in 2014 and would soon make up for the loss he suffered in the panchayat polls.

These leaders, including party vice president Suryanarayan Patro, are in no mood to accept that the defeat in the panchayat polls could be considered as loss of face. They argue that the chief minister deliberately did not participate in the campaign process as he wanted the local BJD leaders to canvas of the party candidates.

What did exactly the chief minister do during the interaction with the newly panchayat samit representatives?

Party spokespersons replied: “He bared his soul to reach out to the participating representatives, listened from them the owes of the people, wanted to know execution of various programmes and assured them all support from the government.”

Was that sufficient enough to instill the confidence among the demoralized workers and leaders?

“At least a beginning has been made. Let’s hope the chief minister maintains this momentum and regains the lost faith,” confided some of the participating representatives.

Panchayat elections are just over. A lot of things will happen soon. The CBI might step up its activities in the near future in the chit fund scam. This will further destabilize the ruling BJD as some of its top leaders are allegedly involved in the chit fund scam. Besides, the BJP national executive meet will further put the party under more pressure.

It now remains to be seen how much cushioning power Naveen generates from his interaction sessions to create a buffer zone to keep the rival forces at the bay.