By D N Singh
The virtual bedrock of decentarlised democracy, the Panchayat Elections are round the corner. And muscle flexing for this grand festival has warmed up.
The known rivals in the fray have pulled up their shocks. The Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party have already drawn the battle lines while the lately marginalized Congress, tries to gain into its kitty the trust of the masses.
Seen in hindsight, since 2017, when the last local level polls were held, it remained a bit of a roller-coaster ride for the Biju Janata Dal when the latter encountered unnerving failures in several pockets of the state.
Courtesy- OneIndia Odia
BJD’s loss became BJP’s gain and as far the Congress is concerned, it remained a mere tail-ender all though.
The BJP gained in spirit but not at the bottom of things. Soon, in 2019, the Assembly polls results came back with some re-energizing notes for the ruling BJD. It could recapture some of those lost fortresses in the Assembly polls, sending a signal for the people that, good jobs pay and so did Naveen led BJD re-merged with as more acceptable alternative than its rivals.
BJD must have had some lessons from its mistakes and where it went wrong. Naveen Patnaik kept the light burning in the war-room and a mechanism was, perhaps, in place for soul searching.
Powerful To The People
Democracy is an off-shoot of people’s diktat and that was exactly the philosophy which gets reflected in chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s deliberations i.e power to the people.
This time around there the slugfest has started and each contender, mainly the BJD and the BJP are on their toes and reheating their strategies to woo the voters.
There are two interesting perception which can be made out. BJD chief, these days, seems never missing the spring in his steps into the choppers, reaching out to people of almost each district in a kind of evangelist spirit with packs of welfare schemes and distribution of health cards for the common men.
Obsessive Approach
Interestingly, BJD’s close rival, the BJP has chosen the different recourse to go with. Several of its state level leaders appear busy in an exercise of analyzing or criticizing what the ruling dispensation does than upholding their own stratagems. Which obviously reflects its obsessive approach which may or may not pay the dividends.
So does the Congress, which seems hopelessly ill with its gradual decline, making a copy-cat of the BJP.
The two years long Pandemic has rendered the common man bit of a war-fatigue due to hardships at all fronts. Now what people want is an ameliorating balm to steam life into their nerves. Which, the BJD, perhaps, seem striking the right cord.
Hopefulness and the role of a bag-piper rather than, an exercise in negativity.
