(Above) Jual Oram and Bijay Mohapatra

Bhubaneswar, June 9: The BJP in struggling to put its act together in Orissa where it was trounced in the last Assembly elections.

The party that once prided itself on its cadre strength in its western Orissa fortresses such as, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Balangir and Kalahandi, is finding it hard to motivate its workers demoralised in the wake of the election debacle.

A string of camps and meetings held by the leadership in a bid to galvanise the cadres have failed to achieve the desired results. Even the anti-Naveen Patnaik meetings and rallies organised by the party since it parted ways with the ruling Biju Janata Dal on the eve of 2009 elections have fallen flat.

Sources in the saffron outfit admitted the lack of enthusiasm among the workers and the leadership’s inability to win back the confidence of the masses, blaming it primarily on the party’s failure to revive issues that had struck a chord with the people in the 90s and helped it seize the political centre stage.

“Despite the fact that the state president hails from Sundergarh, the leadership seems to have forgotten that the issue of western Orissa’s poverty and underdevelopment is still relevant.

“This was the party’s political springboard in the 90s and could help revive its fortunes in the state again. Unfortunately, no one seems to be talking about it,” said a senior leader.

Though wary of speaking out openly, many party leaders admit that for BJP to make a comeback in the state it must go back to its roots in the poverty-ridden western districts where people were still looking for an outfit to give a voice to their frustration as well as their hopes and aspirations.

“We made a grave error of judgement when we agreed to go along with the BJD on the Western Orissa Development Council (WODC), which was nothing but a toothless body that did not meet the popular expectations of the region. We did that perhaps out of political compulsion as we were running a coalition government with the BJD but the situation has changed now. We must raise our voice against the council and demand a more potent body which could address developmental issues relevant to western Orissa,” said a leader.

The state leadership has been fighting shy of such issues for the fear of being subjected to embarrassing questions by the people who would like to know as to why the party kept mum on western Orissa’s consistent neglect and exploitation by the government when they were a part of it.

But a section within the party now strongly feels that time has come to call a spade a spade even if it means admitting some its own past mistakes.