Major regional parties face vacuum as top leaders enter twilight years

BJD lacks a clear successor to Naveen Patnaik, Abhishek Banerjee is yet to win over TMC's senior leaders, and BJP appears reluctant to align with JD(S) amid its electoral decline

The recent confusion in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) over the split voting of the party’s Rajya Sabha members on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, has brought into sharper focus the inner struggles of the Naveen Patnaik-led party, which until recently ruled Odisha. However, it is pertinent to note that a similar issue - namely, leadership - ails some other regional parties as well, some of whose origins coincide closely with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managing to cobble together a coalition government for the first time at the Centre in 1998.

 

But first, a little history. The BJD, a