Bhubaneswar: Turncoats are having a field day in Odisha where poll fever is rising with parties gearing up to battle it out in 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly constituencies. Party hoppers have never had it so good in the state, where the exodus of leaders from major parties began even before the election bugle was sounded by the Election Commission of India.
Curiously enough, poll-time migration began with two former ministers and a sitting MLA bidding goodbye to the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which has won five back-to-back elections in the state and is supposed to be the strongest party in the fray. Former ministers Debashish Nayak and Pradeep Panigrahy (the latter had been expelled by the party for alleged anti-people activities) left as they had no hope of landing BJD tickets. Same was the case with Chilika’s sitting MLA Prashant Jagdev, who had fallen out of favour with the BJD leadership after getting embroiled in a case of violence.
This was just the beginning, and soon the floodgates opened. The collapse of alliance talks between the BJD and Bharatiya Janata Party, which had kept a large number of leaders on both sides on pins and needles for days together, intensified the process of migration, with defections also taking place in the saffron party and the Congress which is the third major player in the state
However, it was most visible in the BJD, which in the past had never been so vulnerable to the phenomenon of ‘ayaram-gayaram‘. Prominent among the regional party leaders to have switched loyalty are sitting Cuttack Lok Sabha MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, former Berhampur MP Siddhant Mohapatra, former MLA Akash Das Nayak (both Siddhant and Akash are known faces in the Odia film industry), sitting Jaydev MLA Arabinda Dhali and former MLA Priyadarshi Mishra. They all joined the BJP and have been rewarded with party tickets to contest the elections. While the BJP has fielded Mahtab from the Cuttack Lok Sabha seat, it has made Pradeep Panigrahy its candidate on the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat. Siddhant, Akash Das Nayak and Priyadarshi Mishra have been rewarded with assembly tickets.
The BJD, too, has been welcoming defectors from other parties with open arms and rewarding them with tickets. Of the 20 Lok Sabha candidates that the regional party has announced so far, at least five are imports from other parties. They include former state BJP vice-president Bhrugu Buxipatra who, within hours of his joining, was made the candidate from Berhampur Lok Sabha seat which will now witness a battle of turncoats.
Similarly, the Naveen Patnaik-led party has fielded Surendra Singh Bhoi, former minister and a senior Congress leader from western Odisha, from the prestigious Bolangir Lok Sabha seat. It has rewarded former Congress MLA Anshuman Mohanty with a ticket to contest the coastal Lok Sabha seat of Kendrapara. Anshuman is the son of former minister Nalini Mohanty who was one of the founder members of BJD and once extremely close to Patnaik. However, they fell out after corruption charges were levelled against Mohanty who quit the BJD to join Congress. Anshuman will be taking on BJP stalwart Baijayant Jay Panda in Kendrapara.
Among the other turncoats nominated by Patnaik for the Lok Sabha elections are Parineeta Mishra (Bargarh), Manmath Routray (Bhubaneswar), Pradeep Majhi (Nabarangpur) and Dhanurjay Sidhu (Keonjhar). Parineeta was declared the ruling party’s candidate from Bargarh within hours of her husband Sushant Mishra, a BJP stalwart, joining the BJD. The regional party has, thus, killed two birds with one stone. While it has poached a key BJP leader in the form of Sushant, it has also taken the credit for taking a decisive step towards providing representation to women in the elections by fielding his wife from Bargarh.
Odisha BJP leaders welcoming new memebrs to the party. Photo: X/@BJP4Odisha
Patnaik has fielded Pradeep Majhi, a former Congress MP, as the BJD’s Nabarangpur Lok Sabha candidate. Mahji had got elected from the constituency on a Congress ticket in 2009. He had joined the ruling BJD ahead of the 2022 panchayat polls as he did not see any future in the Congress.
The BJD has replaced its sitting MP from Keonjhar Chandrani Murmu with former Congress MLA from Champua Dhanurjaya Sidu this time. In 2019, Sidu had contested the Telkoi assembly seat on a BJP ticket and lost to BJD’s Premananda Nayak. He then switched over to the BJD ahead of the 2022 panchayat polls.
Manmath Routray, a former pilot and son of Congress veteran Suresh Kumar Routray, was widely expected to contest the ensuing elections as a candidate of his father’s party. However, taking everyone by surprise, he joined the BJD and was given the party ticket to contest the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat, where he finds himself pitted against BJP’s sitting MP, bureaucrat-turned-politician Aparajita Sarangi.
Why so accepting?
What makes the two major parties in the state accept these turncoats without hesitation and reward them with tickets? Most political observers feel that the BJP has been more than willing to accommodate them because it has been facing a crisis of known faces to be fielded as candidates, but it is a bit difficult to explain in the case of the BJD which, at least on paper, seems to be the strongest party in the state. “In the case of BJD, the only plausible reason could be the fear of anti-incumbency creeping in after 24 years of uninterrupted rule. This is perhaps also one of the reasons why some important leaders have left the party,” said political analyst Shashi Kant Mishra.
However, Professor Rajat Kujur, a keen observer of Odisha politics, describes this kind of party hopping as not only unethical but also detrimental to the health of Indian politics. “People should reject party hoppers. If the BJD thinks it is going to gain by giving tickets to such leaders it is wrong. The problem is BJD’s levers are being controlled by a person who does not have much political experience. He knows very little about Odisha’s political realities,” said Kujur, referring to V.K. Pandian, who recently quit the IAS to join the BJD.
The entry of turncoats has also triggered resentment among BJD and BJP cadres in some areas. Recently, BJD workers in Kendrapara assembly segment protested against the induction of former Congress MLA Ganeswar Behera into the party. They held a demonstration displaying placards that read “ imported leaders go back”. Party leader Narayan Pradhan agreed that such moves can engender resentment among both workers and leaders. “Such decisions are always taken by the top party leaders who perhaps lay more emphasis on the winnability factor. But it does not always work that way. When the claims of leaders who worked for five years to consolidate the party’s base in different constituencies are ignored, it is certain to cause ill-will,” said Pradhan.
However, BJP’s Sujit Das sought to dismiss any misgivings on account of the party giving tickets to entrants from other parties. “We are sure that the leaders joining our party are taking the plunge after being convinced about our ideology. We feel certain that they will do well as party candidates as well,” remarked the leader.
Ashutosh Mishra is an Odisha-based journalist.
