In just about a week, two vice-presidents of the BJP’s Odisha unit put in their papers and switched to the BJD, the state’s ruling party that is seeking a straight sixth term. Both BJP leaders, Bhrugu Baxipatra and Lekhasri Samantsinghar, were vociferous critics of the regional party till recently. But within hours of joining BJD, Baxipatra was nominated as the party’s Lok Sabha candidate for Berhampur, which once elected former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. Samantsinghar, a college teacher in her earlier avatar, could be fielded from Balasore to take on her former colleague and ex-Union minister Pratap Sarangi.
The national party has poached from the state party, too. Veteran parliamentarian Bhartruhari Mahtab, sitting MP Anubhav Mohanty, two-time Lok Sabha member Sidhant Mohapatra, and several ex-MLAs exited the BJD to join the saffron party. The Congress, once a major political force in the state and now reduced to the fringe, also saw its leaders defecting to the two other parties. The frenzied exodus that has marked the run-up to the twin elections was unheard of in the state. The number of candidate imports suggests that Odisha has finally joined the party of party-hoppers.
What is triggering this desertion? There are personal aspirations of leaders and then there are strategic alignments of parties. There is opportunism on both sides. The alliance talks between BJP and BJD, which dragged for two weeks, led to too much of uncertainty on both the sides. After the negotiations collapsed, things became much more confounding for aspirants in the two camps. The BJD, battling anti-incumbency, has been poaching leaders left, right and centre, which it believes would work for a realignment of candidates and vote shares. Of the 20 Lok Sabha candidates announced by the state ruling party, five are from either the BJP or the Congress.
With the first phase of elections a little more than a month to go, the two camps are playing the waiting game by holding back on announcing names for a significant chunk of assembly seats. As the power dynamics play out, one issue is clear—both BJD and BJP have very little or no reserves of their own to dig into. Old guards have refused to go away and credible second lines have not been groomed.