Bhubaneswar: The BJP's loss to the BJD in the Bijepur Assembly bypoll has left an effect on the party's leadership. It has made party president Amit Shah, who had been talking about winning more than 120 seats in the 2019 elections in Odisha, come down from his high horse and set the party more realistic targets.
This change of stance was evident during his visit to west Odisha districts of Kalahandi and Balangir on April 4 and 5 when he remained mum about "Mission 120+" in his public meeting at Bhawanipatna.
Quizzed by scribes and taunted by critics, he came up with face-saving explanation at his next public meeting in Balangir.
"I did not talk about it because we are going to win more seats than that in the state," he said indulging in pre-poll rhetoric.
Sources in the BJP said that having made a frank assessment of the party's organisational strength in the state Shah has realised that it would be much more prudent for it to focus on western Odisha where it has strong roots compared to the coastal belt where lotus has never been the symbol of choice for the people.
"More importantly we are facing a serious threat from the BJD even in the western belt where after having done exceedingly well in the panchayat elections we failed to sustain the momentum and consequently suffered a humiliating defeat in Bijepur. We were also wiped out in the Attabira NAC polls. Hence Shah's focus on consolidating our base in west Odisha appears to be right," said a senior party leader.
In a smart move, Amit Shah deliberately raised the issue of western Odisha's neglect by the Naveen Patnaik regime. It was on this plank that the party had made its first forays into the region in the mid-1980s. While it opened its account in the Assembly in 1985 by winning the Kamakhya Nagar seat, its tally went up in 1990 when it bagged both Junagarh and Bonei seats and increased its share of votes from 1.5 to 3.56 per cent. Even now, eight of its 10 MLAs hail from the state's western belt.
But the saffron charge of the state government's neglect of west Odisha is beginning to sound hollow as the party was BJD's coalition partner from 2000 to 2009, a period during which its own leaders did precious little for the region.
Senior BJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Prasanna Acharya said: "Our coalition government had senior BJP leaders such as K.V. Singh Deo from west Odisha. What did they do for the area then? Everyone wants to play the west Odisha card, but the people there are not fools. They will see through the BJP's game."
He also made a pointed reference to the BJP-led NDA government's refusal to accept the demand for setting up a permanent high court bench in west Odisha and include the Kosali-Sambalpuri language that is widely spoken in the region in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Acharya said: "These are two major demands of the region that have not been conceded. So who is neglecting the area, we or they?"
The sheen that the BJP had acquired in the state after winning a record 297 zila parishad seats in the last panchayat elections, a quantum jump from 36 in 2012, is beginning to wear off in the wake of Bijepur debacle with even dissidents from parties such as the Congress choosing the BJD's over the lotus.
"The talk of 120+ in the context of Odisha seems like a slip of tongue on the part of Shah. Actually it is the BJD which is going to win that many seats. The BJP has realised its limitations in Odisha and accordingly revised its strategy in the state with focus on the western belt," said BJD veteran and former minister A.U. Singh Deo.
However, BJP national secretary Suresh Pujari asserted that the party was still working towards the goal of winning more than 120 seats.
"Amit Shahji believes in setting tough goals and achieving them. He has proved this in states such as UP, Haryana, Assam and Tripura. There is no change in the party's strategy for Odisha," he said.
