The Biju Janta Dal (BJD) and the BJP may be arch rivals in Odisha, but on the issue of presidential polls, they have decided to unite.
If BJD president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has supported NDA’s nominee for the post of president Ram Nath Kovind, it has to be remembered that in the last presidential polls, the BJP supported former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma whose candidature was endorsed by Patnaik and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.
After a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Odisha CM said his party would support Kovind as he is a dalit and also because the BJP had backed Sangma in the last election. Patnaik extended his support for the NDA's candidate much before the opposition announced their candidate, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar. After the Congress announced Meira Kumar's candidature, BJD said its earlier decision to support Kovind was final.
Odisha’s political scenario has changed during the last few months. A resurgent BJP displaced Congress from the main opposition to a poor third position in the recent rural body election. Now, political analysts feel that Patnaik-led BJD will face a real challenger in the saffron party when the state goes to polls for both assembly and Parliament. This being the case, it is surprising that Patnaik decided to extend support to the candidate of the BJP.
Of course, after announcing support for Kovind, Patnaik and his party leaders said BJD’s fight against the BJP on different issues will go on. "The office of the President of India is above political considerations and the BJD wants to keep it above politics. In fact, President of India does not belong to any political party. In my view, in a matured democracy, the president should be elected in a consensus manner. So, when the prime minister suggested the name of Ram Nath Kovind, we extended our support to him taking all factors into consideration in the interest of the nation," the chief minister said.
Interestingly, Patnaik had earlier supported Modi’s demonetisation move. When the BJP's national executive met at Bhubaneswar, after their landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, the PM did not say anything against the BJD or the chief minister. But, while Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan is spearheading party activities in the state, several central leaders, including Union ministers and chief ministers of various BJP-ruled states, who visited Odisha, were vocal against Patnaik.
The BJP's Odisha unit has welcomed BJD's decision to back Kovind. PCC president Prasad Kumar Harichandan said though the BJD and the BJP are posing against each other, they are one.
Congress chief whip in the Odisha assembly, Taraprasad Bahinipati claimed that there will be cross-voting in the presidential polls and some of the BJD votes will go to Meira Kumar. The BJD, however, said there won't be any cross-voting.
There is also the view that the BJD's came up on an anti-Congress plank, and so Patnaik cannot support the Congress or its presidential candidate. Both the BJD and the BJP are remnants of Janata Parivar which had formed the first non-Congress government in the Centre in 1977 after the Emergency era. In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik’s father, former chief minister Biju Patnaik, was the rallying point of anti-Congress votes and after the split of Janata Party, he headed Janata Dal in Odisha.
Naveen Patnaik entered politics two decades ago after the death of his father. He carved out his own party from the original Janata Dal and named it after his father. Like his father, he, too, became the rallying point of anti-Congress forces in the state and defeated the grand old party after forming an alliance with the BJP. Both the parties won two assembly elections together.
The BJD-BJP alliance broke after Kandhamal communal riots in 2008, as Patnaik was irked by the alleged involvement of Sangh Parivar in the violence. In 2009 and 2014, the BJD went to polls alone and swept the assembly as well as the Lok Sabha polls. Though Congress-led UPA won Lok Sabha polls in both 2004 and 2009, it could not create an impact in Odisha. In 2014, while Modi wave brought BJP victory elsewhere, Odisha remained elusive to the saffron party.
After severing ties with the BJP, Patnaik always said his party wants to be equidistant from both the Congress and the BJP. Till 2014, BJD’s plank was the earlier misrule of the Congress. It was also harping on the Centre’s neglect of Odisha as the UPA was in power in Delhi for ten years. After 2014, the BJD used the same strategy against the BJP. However, there was a difference between UPA and NDA vis-à-vis the BJD-led government in Odisha. During the UPA regime, the Union ministers, who used to come down to Odisha, used to laud the state government, but the NDA ministers and BJP chief ministers from neighbouring states have been taking on the state government over many issues.
The BJP winning 297 zilla parishad seats against 473 of BJD and 60 of the Congress has changed the political narrative of the state. The BJD is unnerved; its leaders discordant. Though he supported BJP’s pick for president, the chief minister lambasted saffron party for not supporting the BJD's demand for special category status for Odisha.
BJD and BJP are also at loggerheads over Mahanadi river water as the BJP government in Chhattisgarh is building barrages in the river, which the Odisha government said would reduce the water flow to the state. The CM had accused the Centre of failing to take an impartial stand in the Mahanadi issue. Despite a meeting of the chief ministers convened by Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati, the issue was not resolved. The BJD raised the issue of Mahanadi river during the panchayat election in western Odisha. But the BJP's victory showed that this strategy didn't work for the BJD.
The question now is whether BJP central leadership's approach towards Odisha will change after the presidential election. Patnaik better make his team battle-ready if he wants to continue as the chief minister for a fifth term in case the BJP decides takes an aggressive approach in the state.
