It is the strongest attack on Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik yet by a top national leader. At a time when he is being wooed by all sides of the political spectrum, Congress President Rahul Gandhi launched into the most scathing attack against the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo in his own den on Friday.
The contrast with the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi treated Naveen during his three back-to-back visits to Odisha in December and January could not have been starker.
While Modi refused to utter a word against Naveen and restricted himself to some mild, vague and generalised criticism against his government, Rahul went all out against him at the public meeting in Bhubaneswar, hitting him where it hurts the most: corruption.
More importantly, he raked up what has only been talked about in hushed tones so far: the alleged secret understanding between Modi and Naveen.
Describing Naveen as the “junior partner” of Modi, the Congress president said the Odisha chief minister is being “remote controlled” by the PM, because of the involvement of his government in a series of corruption scandals.
Speaking at a Town Hall programme in the city, the Gandhi scion had said there was no difference between Modi and Naveen. Both of them are highly autocratic and run highly centralised governments for the benefit of the party and a handful of businessmen with no concern at all about the man on the street.
He levelled the additional charge of excessive dependence on bureaucrats against Naveen.
Crisis of Credibility
Rahul’s no-holds-barred attack on Naveen Patnaik brought into sharp focus the crisis of credibility that the BJP is suffering in Odisha because of the reluctance of its top leadership to take on the Odisha CM, even as its state leaders go hammer and tongs against him day in and day out.
The kid glove treatment has been particularly visible since the debacle the party suffered in its three strongholds of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in December.
With most assessments suggesting that the NDA may fall short of the magic number of 272 in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP top brass is clearly wary of doing anything that might push Naveen into the other side of the political divide.
Naveen, after all, has been the strongest and most dependable non-NDA ally of the Modi government in the current Lok Sabha, supporting and bailing it out whenever it has been in real or potential trouble.
The BJP is clearly looking to continue with this cozy relationship after the election, if not revive its alliance with the BJD that Naveen had terminated unilaterally in 2009.
The selection of Gita Mehta, Naveen’s elder sister, for Padma Shri on Friday provided more fodder for talk of the BJP-BJD honeymoon.
Though Gita promptly declined the award saying it might be “misconstrued” at a time when the general elections are looming, the damage had already been done by then.
Full Circle For Congress
Things have come full circle for the Congress, which was accused of following the same ‘enemies in Bhubaneswar, friends in Delhi’ policy that the BJP is pursuing now throughout the 10-year long UPA rule from 2004 to 2014.
In his very first address to the party workers after being appointed PCC President in place of Niranjan Patnaik (the current incumbent) in 2013, Jayadev Jena had alleged that Naveen had conspired to have him removed from the same post in his earlier stint in 2008, proving that Naveen’s ‘deal’ with the Congress high command was not a figment of someone’s wild imagination.
Rahul appears to have realised the folly of this strategy and the damage it has done to the fortunes of the party in Odisha.
The figures speak for themselves. From 38 seats in the Assembly in 2004, the Congress was reduced to 27 in 2009 and went further down to 16 in 2014 with a corresponding fall in its vote share.
The BJP gained at the Congress’ expense, most notably in the panchayat elections in February, 2017 in which the former won 297 zilla parishad seats to the Congress’ 60.
Rahul appears to have decided that the best way to revive the party in the state is by launching a frontal, no-holds-barred attack on the Naveen Patnaik dispensation at a time when the other major ‘opposition’ party is suffering from a serious crisis of credibility.
He thinks his party would gain electorally by occupying the entire opposition space in the state.
Endorsement Of Niranjan Patnaik
The recalibrated strategy was also evident in the public endorsement of PCC chief Niranjan Patnaik. Both at the Town Hall event and at the public meeting, Rahul, while admitting that factionalism had cost the party dearly in the past, said under Niranjan, the party was working as a team ‘for the first time’ in recent times.
This was only a public enunciation of the new strategy that had been evident earlier too when senior leader and former Union minister Srikant Jena was expelled from the party without so much as a show cause notice for his non-stop tirade against Niranjan.
It was the clearest possible signal that the Congress would not tolerate dissidence and indiscipline any longer.
For the first time in recent memory, a Congress President appears to have lent his full weight behind a PCC chief, which should stand the party in good stead in the coming elections.
While it may be tough to dislodge Naveen despite his failure on many fronts and anti-incumbency of 19 years, the Congress has certainly given itself the best possible chance of improving its position – and may be even give the BJD a run for its money – by taking him head on, especially with the BJP now a suspect in the public eye.
(The writer is a senior Bhubaneswar-based journalist and has reported for the BBC for the last twenty years. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own.The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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