Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Election to Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has established that for the citizens of Orissa’s capital City the Congress Party conspicuous by its docility to the lobbyists of USA is not a political party worth electoral support.
BJD has bagged 40 out of 60 wards of BMC with BJP somewhat managing to get only nine wards in a contest beyond its existing legislative alliance with BJD. Even as the new born Samrudha Orissa has gained over one ward, the voters in one-tenth of the wards have preferred independent candidates by bestowing victory upon six of them. But the Congress has not been able to obtain faith in more than two-third of the wards gone even to the party-less contestants. The party of USA lobbyists has been thrown into the dustbin; allowed to breath feebly only in four of the wards of Bhubaneswar to suffer the ignominy of mass rejection, as helplessly as traitors deserve, for the mischief it has played against India under the Sonia-Manmohan Singh gang.
But BJD’s claim that its victory is indicative of rising popularity of its autocrat master Navin Patnaik is never better than a mere braggadocio.
The BJD victory reminds me of the victory of Swatantra Party over Congress candidates in Orissa.
Congress was the party that was our common platform to fight for and win independence. Swatantra Party was the party of the vested interest rich and in Orissa, specifically of the erstwhile kings, whom, for their exploitive activities, peoples of Orissa had thrown out of their thrones with such fury and hatred that they were the first pack of princes in whole of India to have tried to escape subjects’ wrath by merging their respective States in the Union of India.
This being the background, it was absolutely baffling that the same persons who were dethroned by the peoples were winning elections against the Congress.
I was then in active politics and a heavyweight in Orissa unit of the Swatantra Party. I know the reason of victory of the ex-rulers.
The Congress had polluted administration with so much corruption and had become a party of such self-seekers and lobbyists of foreign traders and inland economic offenders like Biju Patnaik that in comparison with its leaders, the ex-rulers were being felt less harmful. Therefore in the ex-princely States the Swatantra Party was gaining victory over the Congress.
This is the precedence that voters of BMC have followed at the moment. To them Congress has become so much a party of traitors and damagers of democracy that the massive misrule perpetrated by Navin Patnaik is not more than a mole. This is why BJD has won, not for Navin’s popularity.
Every mirage has a common characteristic. It does not last long, Therefore the Swatantra Party did not last long. It lost its mask and vanished into oblivion. BJD would also collapse in internecine quarrels that is discernible in its rank and file in its self-made environment, which is akin to dense forest where predators kill each other in quarrels over more share than others of the body of the prey and no matter how much wards it grabs in BMC, when thrashed by the peoples whom truth must someday prevail, it would have no trace of it to look at.
However, at the moment, it is significant that the citizens of the capital city of Orissa have resolutely rejected the party of the USA lobbyists.