Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Co-wives quarrel with each other and often the rivalry leads to violence. The violence becomes so bitter sometimes that a woman does not hesitate to kill her husband if thereby the other woman becomes a widow! This is why it is said “Ghaita Maru Pachhe Sautuni Randa Heu” (If the other wife becomes widow, I don’t bother if my husband dies) Kaikeyi of Ramayan had known that by banishing Ramchandra, her husband Dasharath, most emotionally attached to his eldest son, will die; but she had insisted upon Rama’s banishment because thereby her rivals, the other two wives of Dasharath, Kausalya and Sumitra, will also be bereft of their husband.
This shows that rivalry between or amongst co-wives is not based on love for the husband, but is born out of the sense of insecurity that they experience.
Each one of them resorts to sycophancy to secure her position in the husband’s closest possible proximity. This eventually leads to a competition in sycophancy and precipitates jealousy and violence.
So, sense of insecurity leads to show of sycophancy and competition in sycophancy leads to violence.
This womanly syndrome has now affected the Congress in Orissa. The rendezvous of its newly “appointed” chief K.P.Singhdeo(KP) with sycophancy turning sour at Chandikhol on February 5 has shown how its members are feeling insecure at the moment.
The lady autocrat has jettisoned a tested, dedicated, dependable leader Sri Jayadev Jena, who by origin belongs to the Congress party, from Presidentship of the State unit and has handed over the organization to KP of anti-Congress origin.
The lady autocrat has even created a new post of Campaigner-in-Chief and has planted in this post Srikant Jena who in yester years was acrimoniously anti-Congress.
So a sense of insecurity and jittery has engulfed Congress members and elections knocking at the door, they are too confused to keep composure.
This has led to a violent free for all situation at Chandikhol while KP, accompanied by Jena and “Working President” Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, was going to receive a public reception organized by MLA Sitakant Mohapatra. The MLA welcomed KP and his company at Neulpur and was leading the motorcade to the place of felicitation when wading through the evening crowd in the market area, supporters of Youth Congress leader of the locality Janmejaya Lenka, who had organized a parallel felicitation for KP in a different point in Chandikhol, pounced upon Sitakant and clubbed his car and pelted stones at the motorcade and the scenario soon became a free for all in the internecine quarrel. KP managed to escape.
Allegations and counter allegations will keep the local police engaged for a few hours or days. But the first public felicitation organized for KP after his “joining” the post of provincial chief of Congress by a senior MLA of the party going sour like this will continue to be cited as an instance of contradiction that the Congress is crippled with.