Rebels’ bouncer has Naveen on backfoot

Soon, the shadow-boxing will be over and the contestants will have a go at each other. A day after replacing the parliamentary party chief, ...

Soon, the shadow-boxing will be over and the contestants will have a go at each other. A day after replacing the parliamentary party chief, the six rebel MPs of the Biju Janata Dal decided to take their battle to party president and Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik: they’ve planned a rally on Friday at Hinjili, the Chief Minister’s constituency.

Shrewdly, the rebels did not seek separate seats for themselves when they met Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi yesterday but only gave him a copy of their resolution replacing Patnaik acolyte Arjun Charan Sethi, the Union Water Resources minister.

‘‘We did not request him to consider us as a separate bloc. Why should we when we are in a majority? We have not caused a split’’, Prasanna Acharya, who was elected as parliamentary party leader by the rebels, told The Indian Express.

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Though the rebels chose to downplay their action, it has come as a big slap in the face for Patnaik who, for the first time in his political career, finds himself on the back foot.

Political circles here didn’t give the rebels much credence when they announced last month that there would be organisational changes in the party. Now, they’ve delivered the first blow.

For Patnaik, this term was going smoothly till the last Rajya Sabha polls. The victory then of independent candidate and former union minister Dilip Ray shattered the chief minister’s aura of invincibility and proved that he could be challenged on his own turf.

Part of that is the result of Patnaik’s alienation from his partymen, caused by his overdependence on bureaucrats and a small group of advisors.

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Patnaik’s drive against corruption also took a serious beating when he made ministers of four people chargesheeted by the Vigilance Department. They were later cleared of the charges, but their induction gave detractors a handle against the Chief Minister.

Though Naveen and his loyalists maintain that yesterday’s development would have little impact on the BJD’s future, political observers believe it will change equations between National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the party. With only four MPs, Naveen may lose the pre-eminence he enjoyed at the Centre.

The moot question now is whether the dissidents can repeat the split in the legislature party. As the BJD has 70 members in the Assembly, the dissidents need 24 MLAs to split the party to avoid the provisions of the Anti-Defection Act. Sources said that though the rebels are nowhere near the magic number, frenetic efforts are on to rope in even the fence sitters.

With Orissa Gana Parishad (OGP) president Bijay Mahapatra, Rajya Sabha MP Dilip Ray and former minister Nalini Kanta Mohanty extending support to the dissidents, the coming session of the assembly from September 23 will be crucial.

(Additional reporting from Bhubaneswar)