BHUBANESWAR: Naveen Patnaik does not cease to surprise. He did it again on Friday when against all assumptions, the BJD MPs staged a walk out of the Lok Sabha even before the debate on the no confidence motion got started. And, as the MPs trooped out of the House, political observers were left guessing about the strategy being adopted by the regional outfit. Till that time, it was expected that the party would participate in the debate to raise issues of Odisha interest but eventually abstain from voting.
Several issues including the Mahanadi river water dispute, the Polavaram dam construction and the demand for increasing the minimum support price (MSP) on paddy which are related to Odisha could have been raised in the debate. The abstention or walk out following the debate was in tune with the party’s policy of maintaining equidistance from the BJP and the Congress but the abrupt action the party took not only stumped both the Treasury and Opposition benches but also brought the spotlight on itself and its chief Naveen Patnaik.
This is not for the first time that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has kept everyone guessing over his political moves. At a time when the rivalry between BJD and BJP in the State is getting more and more intense by the day, the Opposition had been hoping for a tilt towards it. But, only recently, when the entire opposition leaders attended the swearing in ceremony of HD Kumaraswamy as Karnataka Chief Minister at Bengaluru, Patnaik gave it a miss. At the same time, he skipped the Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog on June 18 that was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While he had backed the NDA Government in the election of the President of India Ram Nath Kovind, he had also openly opposed the election of Venkaiah Naidu as the Vice-President. However, leading the walkout in the Lok Sabha, BJD Parliamentary Party leader Bhatruhari Mahtab said the party took the stand to protest Central neglect of Odisha and to protect the State’s interests. “The Congressled UPA Government during its 10-year tenure and the BJP-led NDA Government in the last four years have done grave injustice to the people of Odisha.
The debate on the no-trust motion will not be fruitful for the people of the State. Therefore, we are staging a walkout and not participating in the debate,” he said. The decision of the BJD lowered the number needed by the Modi Government to win the notrust vote in the House. The party has 19 members in the Lok Sabha after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan accepted the resignation of Baijayant Panda. Expectedly, it has evoked criticism from Congress as the regional outfit always follows a strident anti-Centre stand in Odisha.
However, inside the Parliament, the party’s stand has not always been aggressive against the Centre. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik alleged that the BJD walkout has exposed the tacit understanding between the BJD and the BJP. “Why CBI is not taking any strong action against those who are involved in the chit fund scam,” he asked and added some people like Pravat Tripathy, Prabhat Biswal, Ramchandra Hansda, Prashant Das and Pradip Sethy have been booked, but the main culprits are roaming scotfree. “BJD and BJP alliance was in power in Odisha from 2000 to 2009 and their relations are intact till date,” he said. BJP state vice-president Samir Mohanty said it is upto the BJD if they decide to walk out. “They make hue and cry about the Centre’s negligence towards Odisha here but did not raise their concerns when they got a proper platform,” he said.