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Journalism of Courage
THE RETURN of the BJD to the BJP’s side has been some time in the making, with the state party careful to sustain cordial ties with the ruling party at the Centre, despite the two being prime opponents in Odisha for some time now.
What has helped are the warm ties BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik enjoys with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave another sample of it during his visit to Odisha on Tuesday. While Modi hailed Patnaik as a “Lokpriya (popular)” CM and indicated that Odisha will play a significant role in the BJP-led NDA’s target of 400-plus seats in the Lok Sabha polls, the CM said Modi had set course for India to become “an economic powerhouse”.
At the Centre, the BJD has always voted with the government on issues crucial to the BJP’s agenda, including the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, GST, the ordinance on powers vesting with the Delhi government vis-a-vis the Centre, the surgical strike, demonetisation and the proposal for one nation, one election, as well as the polls for the President’s post, both in 2017 and 2022.
But the speculation that an alliance was finally coming gained fresh momentum after the BJD again helped the BJP get Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw elected to the Rajya Sabha in the recent elections.
“The alliance will be a win-win for both parties as the BJP is more concerned about returning to power at the Centre with a record margin. With the BJD seeking a sixth straight term in Odisha, a tie-up with the BJP, the main opposition party, will also ensure it a smooth victory,” a senior BJD leader said.
Following the death of the towering Janata Dal leader and former Odisha CM Biju Patnaik, Biju loyalists formed a regional party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), to take forward his legacy on December 26, 1997.
At this time, the BJP was struggling to establish its base in Odisha, with the Congress being the other dominating force in the state. The BJP leadership, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, hence sought out and forged ties with the BJD.
The two parties fought their first Lok Sabha polls together in 1998. The BJD fought 12 seats and won 9, while the BJP contested 9 seats and won 7. Their vote share together was 48.7% – the BJD’s being 27.5% and the BJP’s 21.2%.
The Janata Dal, which fought 16 seats, could not open its account, with its vote share nosediving to 4.9%.
A BJP government led by Vajpayee came to power at the Centre, but had a brief stint.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the BJD and BJP repeated the same seat-sharing formula, and swept Odisha, winning 19 of total 21 seats, with a vote share of 57.6%. While the BJD won 10 seats, with 33% of the votes, the BJP won 9 with 24.6%.
The BJD-BJP success story continued in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, though the UPA came to power at the Centre. The combine won 18 of Odisha’s 21 seats, with a combined vote share of 49.3%. This time, the BJD won 11 seats, with 30% of the votes, and the BJP 7, with 19.3% vote share.
2000 was the first time the two parties fought an Assembly election together, with Naveen Patnaik making his debut as CM. The BJD fought in 84 seats and won 68 (29.4% vote share), and the BJP fought 63 and won 38 (18.2% votes). The combined vote share of the BJD and BJP, at 47.6%, far outnumbered the Congress’s tally at 33.8% votes and 26 seats.
A greenhorn to politics, Patnaik appreciated the guiding hand of the national party.
In the 2004 Assembly polls, held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, the BJD and BJP repeated the same seat-sharing formula – and won 61 and 32 seats, respectively, with 27.4% and 17.1% of the vote share. The combined vote share of the two parties was 44.5%, 10% more than the Congress’s, which won 38 seats.
August 2008 saw the murder of VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati, who claimed to be spearheading a campaign against alleged conversions to Christianity, in Kandhamal district. The communal riots that followed left 38 dead.
Following this, the BJD pulled the plug on the alliance just ahead of the 2009 polls. While the riots gave it an excuse, Patnaik was seen as seeking to exert his authority and grow out of the shadow of his national ally, with his own popularity untouched in Odisha.
It was the BJP that faced the brunt of the BJD’s move. In the 2009 Assembly polls, the BJP fought almost all the seats (145 out of 147) and won just 6, with 15.5% of the votes. In the Lok Sabha elections, which returned the UPA to power at the Centre, the BJP could not open its account, despite securing 16.9% of the votes.
The BJD, on the other hand, increased its seats as well as vote share – winning 103 of the 129 seats it contested, with a vote share of 38.9%, in the 2009 Assembly polls; and 14 of the 18 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, with a vote share of 37.2%. At the time, it had forged ties with smaller parties like the NCP, CPI(M) and CPI.
While the 2014 Lok Sabha polls were a Modi wave election, its impact was hardly felt in Odisha, where the BJD again held sway. The BJD, in fact, swept the Lok Sabha elections, winning 20 of the 21 seats, with 44.8% vote share. The BJP got the 1 remaining seat, with 21.9% vote share.
In the 2014 Assembly polls, the BJD won 117 seats with 43.9% votes, and the BJP got just 10, though with a slight increase in its vote share, to 18.2%.
Odisha again bucked the trend in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when Modi returned to power with even more number of seats.
While the BJP improved its tally both in the Lok Sabha and Assembly, it stayed behind the BJD. It won 8 Lok Sabha seats, securing 38.9% vote share, and emerged as the main Opposition party with 23 seats in the Assembly (32.8% vote share). The BJD won 12 seats in the Lok Sabha and 113 in the Assembly.
Since 2019, with Patnaik ageing and without a second rung in the BJD, the BJP has been trying to get closer to the party. The regional party has also found it prudent to retain friendly ties with the Centre to maintain its hold in the state, voting with it or supporting it on crucial decisions.
In June 2019, the BJD helped the BJP get its IAS-turned-leader Ashwini Vaishnaw elected to the Rajya Sabha, despite the latter not having the required numbers.
In February 2022, Modi lauded the Odisha government on the floor of Parliament for “pushing reforms in the mining sector”, saying it had helped Odisha gain substantially.
Last year, during a visit to Odisha, Union Home Minister Amit Shah hailed Patnaik as a “popular CM” and lauded his steps in disaster management and against the “Maoist menace”. A month later, Patnaik gave PM Modi a ranking of “8/10” for his foreign policies and steps taken to fight corruption.
The PM often addresses Patnaik as “my friend”.
In 1998, when the two parties first joined hands, the Congress bagged only 5 Lok Sabha seats, despite getting 41% of the vote share. In 1999, its tally fell further to 2 seats, with 36.9% votes.
In 2004, the Congress did not better its 1999 performance in terms of seats or votes, despite the party coming to power at the Centre.
In the Assembly too, the Congress has not recovered since the BJD-BJP first fought polls together in 2000 and wrested power from it. In 2000, it won 26 seats, with a vote share of 33.8%. In 2004, when it fought 128 seats in alliance with the Left, it won 38 seats, with 34.4% vote share.
After the BJD and BJP first snapped ties in 2009, the Congress won 27 seats in the Assembly, with 29% vote share. In the Lok Sabha, its tally climbed to 6 with 32.7% vote share, in an election where it was voted back to power at the Centre.
But, after the Modi wave began in 2014, the Congress went into decline – drawing a blank in the Lok Sabha polls in Odisha that year, despite getting 26.4% votes, and winning 16 seats in the Assembly, with 25.7% of the votes.
In 2019, it was further pushed to the brink, with only 1 Lok Sabha seat and 9 seats in the Assembly, finishing behind the BJP.
