The decisive phase of general elections 2019 has arrived. Once the polls are notified, which might happen in the next few days, every political party will enter the last lap. It’s now or never.
So, how’s the josh?
The ruling Biju Janata Dal appears confident. But the party has been in the saddle for 18 years and the general mood at the grassroots is something it is well aware of. There is swelling disenchantment against local legislators, which could make the BJD a tad wary. Even as large-scale changes in candidates are predicted, which could trigger dissidence, party chief Naveen Patnaik is holding the cards close to his chest. For, incumbents and insiders would be the BJD’s biggest challenge in an election year when anti-incumbency is at its peak.
After four terms, Naveen is still the towering leader in the state with none to match his charisma and stature. The 72-year-old regional satrap has been relentless too. While the state government has unleashed a flurry of welfare schemes targeting the rural voters, Naveen has ensured that every occasion is turned into a spectacle. Before the real election campaigning could even start, he has touched every gram panchayat through his village connect programmes and toured almost all districts to highlight what his government believes are going to be the game-changers – KALIA (Krushak Assistance for Lilvelihood and Income Augmentation), Mission Shakti et al. He is virtually everywhere, dotting the skyline along the national and state highways, on every medium that could grab eyeballs.
His party would soon take over almost every hoarding and billboard in the state right till the gram panchayat level. There is an uncanny resemblance to how he built up the campaign before the panchayat polls in 2017. The results, though, were a shocker. Ever since, the BJD has left no stone unturned, winning every challenge hands down.
For challenger BJP though, the journey has been rollercoaster. Having secured a vote share of 17.9 per cent by bagging 10 seats in the 2014 Assembly polls, it had displaced Congress from the second position in the rural polls three years later. Its Mission 120+ was meant to end the BJD’s long rule. Things have gone downhill ever since. By-elections have been lost and the ground that BJP had gained in 2017 seems to have been conceded.
For a party that seeks to dethrone the BJD, the BJP has quite a bit of distance to cover. Though it had accumulated over 32 per cent vote share in panchayat polls in 2017, it will have to take a leap to dislodge the BJD from the current level of 43 per cent in the Assembly polls. Its “vikas” or development agenda has been neutralised by the BJD. Except for Ujjwala, the party has failed to milk the success of the Central government programmes such as rural housing, economic inclusion and rural entrepreneurship. So much so that the rural voters continue to believe that most schemes were rolled out by the state government.The BJP also has to stave off challenge from a resurgent Congress.
It had eaten into the vote share of the grand old party as it gained ground in 2017 but the Congress’ success in last year’s Assembly elections elsewhere has invigorated its state unit. On February 6, when AICC chief Rahul Gandhi visited Bhawanipatna and Rourkela, the party distributed Minimum Guarantee Cards to people listing out its promises - a raise in the minimum support price of paddy to `2,600 per quintal, loan waiver for farmers, minimum income and employment for youth.
After the successful airstrike and diplomatic assault on Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has left the opposition wary. Can BJP ride on his magic in Odisha this time around? Will Congress manage a Pheonix-like rise from the ashes? Naveen was one of the few satraps to have withstood the Modi wave in 2014. Will he do a re-run? It’s worth a wait because the 2019 elections would be unlike any one has seen in the past.
Siba Mohanty
Deputy Resident Editor, Odisha
sibamohanty@newindianexpress.com