Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The result of municipality elections in Orissa has gone clearly against the Congress.
It does not necessarily suggest that the urban peoples have expressed their faith in Chief Minister Navin Patnaik by electing BJD-BJP candidates in majority of urban wards.
There was no coalition between the BJD and the BJP in the urban sector.
This lack of coalition between the two allies that rule the state is a clear pointer to the fact that the BJP unit of Orissa has no faith in Navin. So it would be ridiculous to imagine that the peoples, who in general are the worst affected by Navin’s misrule, have expressed their faith in him in municipal areas.
In fact, Navin Patnaik, as the Chief minister, was privy to intelligence reports that the peoples were so averse to the misruling coalition that the election results may be most embarrassing for him. The fidgetiness that engulfed him eventually made him rush to wards after wards to campaign for his candidates. It was unprecedented. To say the least, no Chief Minister ever in Orissa had campaigned for ward members / councilors in Notified Area councils or Municipal elections. Navin did it. Only a man in power, who knowing loss of his credibility, losses political equilibrium to understand the finer aspect of democratic norms that a Chief Minister should stay away from elections to local-self-bodies in order to get a correct feedback on the impact of his administration, could have indulged in electioneering. Navin indulged. So, he knew and he knows that his political credibility has dwindled in Orissa. Even his partner in power, BJP knows it. Therefore the BJP had not preferred an official coalition with Navin in the Municipal elections. And, this is the reality.
So why the candidates belonging to BJD and to BJP got votes in majority of wards? The answer is very simple. Peoples of Orissa, specifically the town-dwellers, who usually are news-watchers, are well aware of how the Congress party has become a lunching pad of USA interests in India and how American lobbyists have become the so-called high-command syndicate of this party.
It would have been very unpatriotic for town-dwellers of Orissa to vote for Congress that has subjected India to American hegemony by all nefarious means.
Therefore, they were to defeat the Congress and therefore, candidates belonging to BJD & BJP have been considered as lesser evils. Now, naturally, there would be more urban bodies in the hands of the ruling coalition. But that will never mean that peoples of Orissa have faith in Navin.