In the event of a tie-up between BJP and BJD, what could be Congress’ fate when the trio goes to the hustings in 2024? Will the party, which has been in the third position in the Assembly with just 9 MLAs and its organisation getting weaker and weaker since 2000 in the State, make a turnaround or get further marginalised?
After a possible electoral understanding between the ruling BJD and principal Opposition BJP in Odisha, the two parties, which have been targeting each other on various sensitive issues, will bury their hatchet and keep mum over each other’s follies and foibles. United, the BJP-BJD front would be stronger and Congress might sink into insignificance when it comes to facing them during the poll campaigns.
Already, the BJD has a brute presence in the Assembly and the BJP has the second highest seats. Both are in power in the State and Centre with the one continuing for the last 24 years and the other for the last 9 years. They have robust organisations and wherewithal to fight elections with ease, whereas by contrast, Congress has none of the advantages. Consequently, the overriding presence of a combined BJD-BJP front could weigh too heavy for the Congress.
On the flipside, the sudden decision of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik and BJD Central leadership to stitch up an alliance after a thaw in their animosity and confrontationist posturing for nearly a year may cause wide scale anger and frustration in the rank and file of their respective organisations. In the last two days, such symptoms have already been seen. The voters who are the ultimate deciding factor may also take the alliance the wrong way as already the reactions among the people of the State have shown that they are finding the coming together of the two erstwhile allies after 15 years of gap as their mere ‘opportunism’ to win the forthcoming elections. Fed up with the ‘unholy nexus’, they may look for the next alternative and quite unmistakably, it could be Congress before them.
Meanwhile, the Congress has been upbeat over its election prospects as the party, which has been alleging that the BJP and BJD are bedfellows since 2000 and their enmity after their alliance was broken in 2009 is just a show-off, was organising symbolic marriage of the duo to highlight how they were pretending with the electorate. Congress was very critical of a covert understanding of the BJP and BJD as a part of which the BJD was supporting all the bills of the Modi Government in the Parliament and the latter was not using CBI and ED against the scam-tainted BJD leaders. Now, the Congress has alleged that the move of the duo for forming a formal tie-up ahead of the 2024 polls is to ensure that Naveen becomes the CM for the 6th time in Odisha and Modi makes his hattrick at the Centre as PM so that it becomes easy for them to loot the mineral wealth of Odisha.
