It was billed as the semi-final before the big battle in 2014. And if the results of the just concluded elections to 66 urban local bodies (ULBs) in Odisha are anything to go by, Naveen Patnaik looks all set to win the final – the Assembly and parliamentary polls scheduled to take place early next year – and achieve what no other politician in the state has done: a fourth successive term as chief minister. Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. PTI Of the 66 ULBs that went to poll, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won 41 and looks set to form the councils in about 10 more given the party-wise positions in these ULBs. In terms of wards, the BJD’s win is even more impressive. Out of a total of 1,121 wards, the party won 642 (57%) with the Congress, its main challenger, emerging a distant second with 318, less than half the number of wards won by the BJD. The BJP, which till the very last, kept bragging that it would win ‘at least 25%’ of the wards, was the biggest loser with no more than 47 (4.19%) of the wards. It could not even open its account in 40 ULBs. The party that won 11 ULBs in the last polls five years ago, could not get a simple majority even in one this time. It managed to emerge as the single largest party in just one ULB: Rairangpur – proving beyond a shred of doubt that it was the alliance with the BJD rather than its intrinsic strength that gave the party a disproportionate share of wards and councils last time. While the Congress marginally improved upon its 2008 tally by winning a clear majority in 10 councils, one more than its 2008 tally, it can hardly take any comfort from the improvement since it failed to usurp the huge space vacated by the BJP, almost all of which went to the BJD. The results of the ULB polls have brought the simmering tension within the party to the fore with the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Jaydev Jena seeking the sanction of the party high command to act tough on the dissidents, who he believes fielded rebel candidates and thus ensured the defeat of the official Congress candidates at many places. On their part, the ‘dissidents’ point to the fact that the PCC chief could not ensure victory for the party even in his home turf of Anandpur. They also draw attention to the fact that in all those places where Jena campaigned, the Congress not only failed to win, but also fared worse than it had done in 2008. In the BJP, knives are out for newly appointed state unit president KV Singhdeo, who is accused of running the show all by himself ignoring senior party leaders. That the party was not in good shape was clear even before the polls – notwithstanding KV’s ‘at least 25%’ brag – as the party failed to even field candidates at many places. But the scale of the loss has devastated the party rank and file at a time when the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls are just six months away. The party was hoping to ride on the supposed wave created by the anointment of Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate barely a week before the ULB polls. But the Modi magic was nowhere to be seen in the state – not even in the holy town of Puri, which the Gujarat Chief Minister visited during the Rath Yatra in July this year. Out of the 22 wards in the Puri municipality, the BJP won just two. While the two main rival parties are riven by dissension, doubt and worse, even BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has no reason to be complacent. He may have won a majority for ULBs for his party; but the victory of a large number of party rebels, who won the elections after being denied the BJD ticket, is not a happy augury for the ruling party in the run up to the 2014 elections. Besides, he has to worry about the 25 ULBs in western Odisha where the polls could not be held because of the ongoing agitation demanding a permanent bench of the High Court in the region. What makes it tougher for him to win in the polls in this region rescheduled for December is the fact that this is the part of the state where his party won the least number of seats both in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls last time. But there is no denying the fact that Naveen has emerged stronger after the ULB polls. Any lingering doubts about his ability to run a successful election campaign in the absence of Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, the expelled leadr who looked after electioneering for the BJD in every previous election, has now been firmly out to rest. He did everything from selecting candidates to formulating the campaign strategy and then topped it with a whirlwind campaign that left the opposition gasping. Even after 14 years of having him as chief minister, the people don’t seem to have had enough of Naveen. Read more at: firstpost/politics/cong-bjp-in-shock-after-naveens-demolition-act-in-urban-body-polls-1139247.html?utm_source=ref_article
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 09:07:21 +0000
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