By D N Singh
Political climate in Odisha has gradually appears warming for the 2024 General elections. The state has to brace up for both the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections simultaneously.
Rivalry seem finding voice day by day as each party is in search of the political quotient beforehand.
BJP, BJD and the Congress are virtually the only stakeholders.
Talking about parties, the BJD is obviously is in the lead and faces the only rival in the BJP.
It is clear that now the battle is between the BJP and the BJD as the latter has to retain its position and the BJP, which has already climbed on the ladder in last polls to slapped the Congress with humiliating relegation to the 3rd position in the state that had been under the Congress regime for quite some time.
Now the question is to what extent the BJP can advance in its pursuit under the party’s Poster Boy, union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Yet for Dharmendra Pradhan there is a dilemma ahead as he has to choose between his goal at the Central politics or he has to etch a fresh space in state electoral politics.
As in politics there is no permanent friends or enemies, Pradhan must recalibrate his position by roping in tall leaders like K V Singh Deo, Suresh Pujari, Sangeeta Singh Deo including ones within the party inimical to his style and discover some merit in young leaders in Odisha.
Now that the situation of politics have got exacerbated by severe political climate change Pradhan, as some observers would have us believe that, he must show a new political measure of his own in the state as he leads the second political entity which has shown some semblance of scare to the ruling dispensation.
Regardless of who leads the party as its party president, Pradhan cannot afford to duck the limelight as the BJP face in the state.
Perhaps it is time Dharmendra Pradhan must shed the stigma of nominations and cease to play the part of the second fiddle to the Centre.
Noticeably, Pardhan has proved himself as a successful election campaign manager in some important states and that must come in handy for his own case and for the party to re-script a new chapter in Odisha.
Pradhan with his supporters and blessings from the BJP top should build a commodious development charter whose narrative power is matched by its plans for wider outreach a notch higher in coastal areas besides in the interiors.
By his political yet composed narratives he has always chosen to match a balance between his barbs at Naveen and as a BJP leader also never crossed certain lines by finicky politics.
If not a decisive win but a very powerful opposition in the state in 2024.
