The prospect of an alliance between the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Odisha for this year’s Lok Sabha and assembly elections has thrown the state’s politics into a turmoil. It is said that such an alliance, between the ruling and the principal opposition parties, has no precedent in Indian politics since 1947.
However, Odisha has already seen one such alliance—between the ruling party and the principal opposition party. The man who had perhaps worked the hardest to legitimise this alliance was Biju Patnaik, the father of the BJD leader and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
In the 1957 elections to the Odisha assembly, no political party won a clear mandate. The Congress had emerged as the single-largest party with 56 seats and 38 percent of the votes polled, while the Ganatantra Parishad had come a close second with 51 seats and 29 percent of the votes.
The Congress had initially formed the government with the help of the Jharkhand Party, which had won five seats, and six independent MLAs. However, the Congress found itself constantly firefighting to survive while members of all other parties kept moving between the treasury and opposition benches.
By the budget session of 1959, it was seen that running a stable government in Odisha was almost impossible. A crisis developed when the opposition demanded a sudden vote. Satyapriya Mohanty, a minister in the Congress government, had sought permission to introduce a bill that would bring in rules regarding the conduct of urban local body elections. The opposition’s demand defied conventions.
The government was not usually challenged while seeking permission to introduce a bill on the floor of the House. The Congress government, headed by Harekrushna Mahatab, was caught unaware, and could muster only 43 votes in favour while the Opposition cast 51 votes against the proposition. When the proposition was defeated, the Opposition demanded the government’s resignation.
The speaker of the assembly had deferred the proceedings for a day. The next day, Mahatab brought forth an argument that the voting did not consider a no confidence motion against the government and took place in the absence of members of the ruling party. Mahatab had claimed that the proposition stood defeated, not the government. There were no grounds for the government to resign from office.
Mahatab declared that if such instability becomes a feature of politics, then governance would become impossible. He had appealed to the members of the opposition to cooperate with the government. Biju Patnaik, who was then emerging as the biggest challenger to Mahatab in the Congress, had also supported this argument.
Though this crisis was managed by the state government, members of the ruling Congress were unhappy over the endless challenges to the government from across the state. The government was beleaguered by protests following displacement of people for construction of the Rourkela Steel Plant. On another front, a dispute had emerged between politicians from districts of Ganjam and Sambalpur over the government’s decision to establish Odisha’s second medical college in Burla.
However, many Congressmen had not favoured dissolving the government and seeking a fresh mandate from the electorate. The only way out was to form a consensus government in alliance with the Ganatantra Parishad.
Prominent Congress leaders at the state level, such as Mahatab, Patnaik, Nilamani Routray and Biren Mitra, were on board with the idea of a coalition government. But there were apprehensions that the Congress leadership at the national level, especially Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, may not bless this union. After all, the Ganatantra Party, formed by former rulers of the princely states and big landowners, was ideologically opposed to the Congress.
Biju Patnaik had then taken on the responsibility of convincing the leadership in Delhi. He had made several trips to the national capital to meet Nehru and other top Congress leaders. Finally, permission was granted to form a coalition government based on a common governance agenda. In Odisha, Congress and Ganatantra had made a pact to work for the progress of the country based on the resolutions passed during the 1959 Nagpur session of the Congress party.
In Odisha, ministers in the Congress government had handed in their resignation letters. Mahatab again became chief minister and formed a new government with just two members—Ganatantra’s leader Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo and Radhanath Rath of the Congress. After nearly three months, the government was expanded to include members from both parties—Nilamani Routray, Satyapriya Mohanty, Sailendra Narayan Bhanja Deo and Brundaban Nayak joined from the Congress, while Raj Ballabh Mishra, Ram Prasad Mishra, Udit Prasad Deo and Laxmi Prasad Mishra joined from the Ganatantra.
Legislators from both parties had fanned out across the state to convince the people about the need for a coalition between rivals. However, a stable government could not be established. Before cabinet meetings, Ganatantra ministers met at the residence of their leader R N Singh Deo and decided on their agenda, while the Congress ministers did not confer with Mahatab. Many meetings ended in acrimonious arguments between the ministers.
The government lasted till 1961. In the ensuing assembly elections, the Congress won 82 seats and formed a government on its own. The Ganatantra Parishad’s tally fell to 37 seats. Biju Patnaik became chief minister for the first time, but remained in power only for around two years. He resigned under the Kamaraj Plan, which aimed to revive the Congress organisation.
Sampad Patnaik
Homi Bhabha Fellow, journalist
(Views are personal)