The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a majority of the seats in Odisha during the Assembly elections in June and selectedMohan Charan Majhi, a four-time MLA from the Keonjhar Assembly constituency, to lead the government. While the new government has kept many of its promises, it also faces criticism on some fronts as well as the problem of factionalism.
On September 17, on the Prime Minister’s birthday, the Odisha government launched the Subhadra scheme. Targeted at women voters, the scheme promises ?50,000 to eligible women between the ages of 21 and 60 in 10 installments over the next five years. Before the polls, the BJP had promised to provide every single woman, without any eligibility criteria, of ?50,000 in cash vouchers. This amount to a single woman covers almost 30% of the expenditure of rural Odisha households, according to Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, 2022-23. Implementation is now slightly different from the promise.
Under another scheme, the social assistance amount for older people and the differently abled has also been increased, but with certain conditions: the hike is applicable only for those above 80 years and for people who have more than 80% disability. The promised benefits for other sections, such as widows, have not been implemented.
The Odisha government has cleared the promised paddy MSP and initiated a scholarship scheme for Adivasi students dropping out of high school. It has also managed to handle the high-profile Jagannath Puri temple and Ratna Bhandar issue, which seriously impacted the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government during the elections. The BJP Sankalpa Patra (manifesto) had 21 “top promises”. Of these, five or six were concrete and have been carried out.
However, the new government has also been renaming and rebranding many of the housing and social assistance schemes of the previous government. The KALIA scheme was renamed CM-Kisan, and the Biju Swastya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY), a healthcare scheme, was repackaged as Gopabandhu Jan Arogya Yojana. Many beneficiaries of the BSKY health card claim that hospitals no longer accept the ‘Biju card’. The BJD has alleged that close to 40 such schemes have been rebranded by the State BJP government.
While the government was able to make these changes without much scrutiny or controversy, it faced a lot of criticism when it decided to change the name of the Biju Patnaik Sports Award. Realising that the move had backfired, it hastened to retain the original name. The BJP was unsuccessful in its efforts because former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik is seen as an irreplaceable cultural icon.
In some cases, such as the LAccMI bus scheme, the government has not only altered the name of the scheme but also the bus colours from green to orange to make it seem as if the buses have been newly provided by the BJP. Communication documents, information brochures, and pamphlets related to schemes have all been branded in orange.
Apart from these issues, the BJP is also busy fighting factionalism. There are purportedly at least three factions in the State camp, with the leader of each nursing chief ministerial aspirations. The party high command has stepped in to address these issues.
Meanwhile, since the election, the Congress is going through a churn and has initiated a leadership change. After dissolving the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee, the All-India Congress Committee has constituted a socially equitable 14-member steering committee.
The BJD is also trying to build its base again. After its electoral debacle, while V.K. Pandian, the bureaucrat-turned-politician and a close aide of former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has stopped making public appearances, older leaders in the BJD, such as Arun Kumar Sahoo, Debi Prasad Mishra, and Sarada Nayak, have made a comeback. A reinvigorated Mr. Patnaik has been meeting with local leaders from the State, which will greatly help the party organisation. He has formed a 15-member committee to coordinate party activities and amplify critical issues. He has also formed a ‘shadow cabinet’ to monitor and raise issues in the public about each government portfolio. However, internal discord in the BJD continues to escalate.
Dhiren Swain is a Joint Doctoral Candidate at IIT Madras and the University of Melbourne
Published - October 02, 2024 12:15 am IST
