Taboola script Diabled on 7th April on request Adpushup head code Diabled on 7th April on request
Peoples Pulse
Indian state is on the verge of another general election. The province of Odisha will face assembly election along with general election in 2019. Hence it is interesting to watch what people of Odisha think about key political issues and how they react to different political questions.
Peoples Pulse, Hyderabad based political research organisation travelled over 2,000 kilometres across Odisha to understand the mood of the people at the ground level. This was done from 20th May to 31st May 2018, about ten months before the scheduled elections for the Lok Sabha and the Odisha Assembly.
Generally speaking, political parties in Odisha are not bothered about important issues like farmer suicide, dalit and Adivasi rights and the declining role of civil society in Odisha. Over the years, education and health have been neglected.
But the opposition party is not bothered about these issues. The principal opposition party Congress is not sure about what issues they should raise. BJP is worried about image of Naveen Pattnaik and how Dharmendra Pradhan can match him. BJD as the ruling party has absolute hegemony over the entire system. If there is any opposition to BJD, it is within. The others just move around them trying to catch them.
General Scenario
Major Issues Identified by the People
Peoples Pulse team after field study has discovered a set of issues on which the people are building considerable disaffection towards BJD and BJP.
Non-issues From People's Perspective
People's Perception Towards Political Parties
BJD
Despite the setback in the recent Panchayat election and the subsequent comeback in the Baijyapur by-election, the majority of the electorate in all the three regions are endorsing the TINA (There Is No Alternative) factor, making the BJD’s dominance irrevocable. The hold of the ruling party is on account of three factors:
After the debacle, ruling BJD has taken several steps to improve the image of the government. Now party is giving emphasis on health, education, employment opportunities for the youth, land rights to the slum dwellers, rights of share croppers in the land they cultivate, etc, are some of the important programmes that this government has undertaken to beat anti-incumbency.
But apart from it, it has carefully nurtured and managed many opposition leaders into their fold there by silencing heavy criticism. Recently they have managed to negotiate with media baron Mr Soumya Ranjan Pattnaik into their fold. Mr Pattnaik through his newspaper and other media organisations was a leading voice against the ruling party. Recently they have given some position to Mr Kuna Tripathy, who is a leading anchor in the popular news channel OTV. OTV is owned by Mr. Baijayant Panda, who has resigned from the BJD.
So along with taking up many developmental initiatives, the government has also taken steps to manage the opinion makers.
Limitations of BJD
Based on the people’s response, BJD’s electoral charisma is solely dependent upon the image of Naveen Patnaik. Besides, him there’s no any other MLA or MP from the party whom the respondents vouched for. In fact, there’s deep anti-incumbency against the sitting MLAs and MPs. However, since BJD is known to go for a massive change in candidates, the anti-incumbency at the constituency level is taken care of the party. Nevertheless, the prevailing antiincumbency against majority of the BJD MLAs and MPs despite goodwill for BJD and Naveen Patnaik is a factor that the opposition parties could en-cash to their advantage, by fielding the right candidates. We found that middleclass drifting towards BJP from BJD. The political space for new entrants within the BJD is very limited, as senior BJD leaders promoting their family members.
BJD is losing its ground in western and coastal Odisha. People are not taking seriously the agitations taken by BJD party on Mahanadi issue as BJD supported on several issues to BJP.
Congress
Indian National Congress has now reduced to a party with no future. It is now deeply divided with leadership issues and it seems the central leadership is not bothered about the state of affairs in Odisha. Recently they have appointed Mr. Niranjan Patnaik as the Congress Chief. Niranjan Patnaik belongs to the powerful Patnaik Lobby in Odisha. He has mining business and he can afford to spend for his party. But there are two important questions for Congress. First, whether they will be able to challenge BJD in terms of organisation and second how they address the internal conflict within their own party. It seems even with the appointment of Mr. Niranjan Patnaik, leaders like Srikant Jena are not satisfied. But on a positive note, Congress still enjoys the grass root organisation strength and given an opportunity they can bounce back. But the Congress supporters slowly moving towards both BJD and BJP. The strength of Congress in Odisha was its Adivasi vote bank. Now that is slowing moving to BJP. So, it would be interesting to see how Congress manages to win over them.
Going by the prevailing perception across the three regions, Congress has already been written off even by voters who identified themselves with the party. It is widely opined that the grand old party is being replaced by the BJP as the main contender for power against ruling BJD. It must be noted that the perception of electoral decline of Congress is invariably linked to the rise of BJP. That is, people don’t say that BJP is rising because of its organisational base or Modi effect, but rather because of the decline of Congress. Hence, the crisis of Congress is the prevailing perception that the party is very weak in terms of its intention to project itself as the main contender for power leading to BJP filling the vacuum.
Limitations of Congress as Perceived by the people
BJP
Since the Panchayat polls wherein BJP performed quite impressively, the partyhas succeeded in projecting itself as the prime challenger to the BJD by replacing Congress. In popular perception the party is showing energy as well as interest about the coming election. Opining that its nowhere in a position to pose a serious challenge to the ruling BJD, majority of the voters in all the three regions of the state acknowledges that the BJP would stand second with Congress slipping to third place.
BJP’s Odisha face Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan has adopted some interesting strategy like praising BuxiJagabandu, (the pride of Odia Nationalism), his paika caste, using his ministry for sponsorship to many events in Odisha, and winning over many disgruntled politicians from both BJD and Congress etc. The key to success of BJP in Panchayat elections is that the party successfully projected itself as a better alternative to Congress.
Limitations of BJP as Perceived by the people
Conclusion
As of now based upon people’s projected perception, which is markedly different from the actual strength at present, the following scenario could be inferred:
In this backdrop, the bottom line of the prevailing political dynamic is:
If there is a bipolar contest as is being perceived by the electorate, then BJP would grow at the expense of Congress and would gain ground among urban middle class and tribal areas in western and southern Odisha. If there would be a triangular contest, that is if Congress manages to hold on to its votes among the tribal and other social constituencies, the BJP would slide to the third place, though ruling BJD would be the maximum beneficiary in this case. Hence, Congress has to put up a serious fight to prevent the Odisha contest as one between the BJD and BJP. This is particularly so because it is aspiring to stop Narendra Modi in his tracks at the national level.