Game changer

The irony was hard to miss. BJD leaders, who during the last five years had treated former Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra as a political untouchable because of his differences with chief minister Naveen Patnaik, turned up at the Biju Patnaik airport in large numbers when the body of Pyari, who passed away at a Mumbai hospital recently, arrived there last week. Most of them also paid him glowing tributes and ensured their presence at the Satya Nagar crematorium where the bureaucrat-turned-politician's mortal remains were consigned to flames. "How death changes everything, even people's assessment of their enemies!" quipped a leader of Odisha Jan Morcha, the party Mohapatra had founded following his expulsion from the BJD in 2012 in the wake of an alleged rebellion against the chief minister.

Power politics

In what is being seen as an acknowledgement of BJP's growing strength in Odisha where it hopes to form the next government in 2019, Norwegian ambassador to India Nils Ragnar Kamsvag paid a visit to the party's state office in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday. The envoy, who was received by state BJP president Basant Panda and legislature party leader K.V. Singh Deo, discussed Odisha's political and economic situation with the state party leaders at length. Elated by the visit, the first of its kind by an ambassador to the office of a political party in the state, BJP leaders said that no one could now afford to ignore the party which was going from strength to strength.

New equations

Disappointment was writ large on the face of excise minister Damodar Rout as the news broke last week that his bete noire Bishnu Das, who also happens to be the Jagatsinghpur district unit chief of the BJD, has been handpicked by chief minister Naveen Patnaik to head the state planning board. Worse from Rout's point of view, Das, his bitter rival in Jagatsinghpur politics, has also been made convenor of BJD's Dalit cell.

The development is being seen as a precursor to the sweeping changes that Naveen is expected to make in his ministry and the BJD organisation in the wake of the losses the party suffered in the recent panchayat elections. This has made the fate of almost all the ministers including Rout uncertain.

Wary leader

The growth of BJP in Kalahandi district, where the party made a virtual sweep of all the zilla parishad seats in the recent panchayat polls, has left Congress stalwart and former Union minister Bhakta Charan Das extremely worried. Sources said while Das was already battling factionalism within his party, the rise of the BJP has posed a fresh challenge for him.

As the former Kalahandi MP fine-tunes his strategy for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he is keen to ensure that BJP does not poach his followers, which may prove suicidal for him. "He is now more wary of BJP than the BJD and would do anything to keep the saffronites at bay," said a follower.

Divided house

The spectacular show of the BJP in the recent panchayat elections has had an unexpected fallout for the party. Instead of uniting the party as was expected, it has left it more divided than ever. BJP insiders say that the party is now clearly divided into camps for and against Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan who apparently claimed all the credit for the party's creditable performance and is being widely perceived as its chief ministerial candidate in the 2019 elections.

Sources said that the projection of Pradhan as the party's future leader has not gone down well with a set of influential leaders who are feeling cheated. "This does not augur well for us," admitted a party leader.

FOOTNOTE

Biju, the saviour

Rivalry between ruling BJD and BJP has sharpened in the wake of rural polls. This was quite visible last Monday when railway minister Suresh Prabhu inaugurated railway projects in Bhubaneswar with Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan in tow. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik was also present on the occasion along with two of his ministerial colleagues. As the meeting progressed, BJP workers, who far outnumbered BJD supporters, began raising slogans in favour of their leaders. Some also targeted Naveen's poor Odia. Though the chief minister sat poker-faced, his party colleagues began to realise that it was turning into a game of one-upmanship and they should not let their rivals score over them. Hence one of the ministers accompanying Naveen got up and shouted "Biju Patnaik zindabad!" in praise of the chief minister's father after whom the ruling party has been named.