Worried BJD fails to bury dissidence

By Prasanna Mohanty

Bhubaneswar: The dissidence and dissension in the ruling BJD is growing wild fire. So much as that it threatens to engulf the whole party now.

And the future, the major challenge the BJD is likely to face for its existence, as observers point out, would come from its own men rather than the BJP and Congress, its main rivals.

The overwhelming participation of BJD dissidents in the ongoing panchayat polls –in almost all parts of the state, - points to the fact that the alarming trend has plagued the party equally everywhere.

The BJD, till Tuesday, has suspended as many as 24 dissidents. The number will go up in the coming days but the problem will aggravate only since the chastised leaders would be more aggressive in their campaign.

It is but natural that dissidence is more a common factor in the ruling establishment than the opposition parties. However, the BJD leadership has not yet found ways to contain them.

The dissidence is not confined to BJD candidates along. Top leaders in different districts, including Bolangir, are locking horns to assert their supremacy in their respective regions.

As regards the campaigning in the elections, the party has solely banked on efforts of chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra. Other top leaders of the party, who were in the BJD’s formative years campaigning all across the state and flourishing in the party, have been confined to their own constituencies, thus getting squeezed and shrunk.

Prediction and guessing game is inappropriate and unsolicited in journalism. But political analysis is made, both by the analysts and poll managers of parties, to arrive at inferences so as to prepare for next moves.

In the present context, as things are unfolding, the BJD is up for enormous trouble.