By D N Singh
While making an analytical item on elections, the analysts normally bank on inputs from the past pages, views of political observers and the media.
What is strikingly omitted is the ear-to-the-ground as a major means to assess the situation in the field.
After the recently held by-poll in Dhamnagar, the two major political parties, the BJD and the BJP have their own reasons for hopes to win in Padampur by-poll.
After all it is the people who are to vote.
But when time comes a party need to lend the ears to the talks out in the open, villages, shops, out-town joints and even ‘paan’ shops.
Where one can have the advantage to get a feel of the pulse of the people who matter. That is where politics emerges harder after getting heated through the furnace of opinions.
In Dhamnagar, perhaps, there were a few times when political red-herrings obliterate the realities. Dhaamnagar may have been a case of a sympathy wave but it was not so pronounced as a sympathy but, more or less, the division of votes there also brought about a dimmed show for the ruling dispensation in Odisha.
It was a miscalculation that weighed a bit heavy on the BJD, went the whispers before and after the poll results.
Politics cannot be driven always by conjectures. In the light of the polls to be held in Padampur, there are also whispers that, the BJD would have done better by fielding late Bijay Singh Bariha’s wife.
“His daughter is no more a local and to expect her to give full time to Padampur sounds a bit urealistic’ said Santosh(name changed) Amaat, a resident of Padampur, requesting anonymity. Moreover, she has not been seasoned in politics so the trust factor may come into play, adds Amaat.
There are times when they come, as it did, a politician has to listen to such whispers. Which, this time, the BJD, being the big stake holder and defending the Assembly seat, must have its ear to the ground as well.
Now has come a time to fight the election there with political merit and the faith that the people of the area had reposed in the past. For the BJD, that factor has to be re-kindled and convince the voters with a reassuring mode.
