Chief Minister to chieftain

Orissa enters the fast lane of an intense triangular fight for the coming twin election for the Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the state with the first phase polls just 12 days away.

After nine years in power in coalition with BJP, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal in Orissa is facing the most serious threat to its bid to come back to power for the third consecutive term, thanks to the break up of alliance with the saffron party.

Two erstwhile political allies are now at each other throat as they wash their dirty linen in public. Their common enemy, the Congress, has pitched in to make the slanging match more intense with a view to reaping the maximum benefit out of the split in the anti-Congress vote bank.
 

Total seats: 21

Congress: 2

BJP: 9

BJD: 10

If the BJD is trying to sell Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s clean image to garner votes, the BJP is bent upon exposing him as a “betrayer”. Though the credit for coining the “betrayer” tag goes to the BJP, the Congress, is subtly playing up the issue to highlight the “unpredictable and double crossing” character of Patnaik to neutralize the most potent weapon in the BJD’s armor, the image factor.

The Congress, however, is more vocal when its comes to the other prominent planks of the BJD, the development issue- be it a spurt in flow of investment to the state, improvement in rural infrastructure or rice at Rs 2 per kg to the poor people.

“The BJD-BJP coalition government has looted the natural resources of the state for last nine years”, UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi told a gathering at Berhampur earlier this week.

Both the BJD and BJP have promised the moon to voters. Attacking the BJD’s Rs 2 per kg of rice flagship programme, BJD has promised to provide rice at Rs 1 per kg, free salt and dal at Rs 5 per kg and insure the farmers and their crop among other things. The BJD has jobs and free power to farmers. The state Congress is yet to announce its manifesto, but going by the account of its competitors, it may not lag behind in promising freebies.