"The fight between BJD 'A' and BJD 'B' shows their lack of focus on development and growth?"

I have used the blog to spell out my position on different topical issues. Like all of you I have been watching the recent developments in the ruling BJD. As a matter of propriety any comment about internal matters of another political party is inappropriate. Both the A and B Teams of BJD share the same anti-Congress ideological positions with the projected neglect of the state by the centre as the main plank and they are committed to their party constitution. Both are anti-Congress votaries and vying for the regional political space. The B Team claims to be a forum within the Party and the A Team is unwilling or unable to expel the B Team; B Team is also unwilling or unable to walk out of the Party. So, basically it is an open fight for power and influence within the ruling party that attempts to distract people of Odisha from real issues, i.e., the failure of the BJD to meet expectations of the people after 12 years; both Teams are equally responsible for neglecting development of the state. Congress is an old party with a distinctly different ideology, support base, national focus and commitment for secular democracy.  

The match between the A and B teams of BJD made me think about the larger issue of emergence of regional parties in post-independent India. There have been three major sources of regional parties. Some leaders of the Congress, once they established their own profile and career as Congress leaders, leveraged their position by breaking away from the national party to advance their personal ambitions better. Biju Patnaik, Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee are examples. The followers of Biju Patnaik do not want to recollect Biju’s Congress origin or 30 years in Congress since that weakens their anti-congress rhetoric. The fact is all the work for which Biju is remembered were achieved by him as a Congress leader only. The second group of parties emerged out of regional movements like the Dravid movement in Tamil Nadu, the anti-foreigner movement in Assam, the Maharashtra movement in Mumbai, the Punjabi Suba movement in Punjab etc. Then there are a group of regional parties that were a result of split in Janata Dal. The Samajwadi Party (SP), the Lok Dal, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Janata Dal United (JDU) come in this third category. Basically the Janata dal had the sole ideology of anti-Congressim. But, once the Party succeeded in getting Congress out of power, the leaders within the party had different ideological positions and ambitions and fought bitterly splitting into many parties. Now these regional parties are held not merely by the glue of anti-congressim, but in UP and Bihar by caste equations and in Odisha by regional assertion. So, BJD has two parts to its ideology: anti-congressism and regionalism (perceived neglect by the centre). Basically, the entire philosophy is negative and is a result of personal ambition of leaders to come to power and rank opportunism. Consequently personalities become more important than policies and ideologies. The BJD has suspended and expelled many of its top leaders not over ideological differences, but over so called ‘anti-party activities’ and ‘indiscipline’, which is a result of autocratic leadership styles, opportunism and obsession with a leadership cult.

In our system of federalism the centre has huge responsibilities. Let us say India has a responsibility for its defence forces, even India is required to help out other countries through financial assistance. The economic managers have to balance the budget. If there is an unfavourable change in currency exchange rate, Petrol, Diesel and cooking gas becomes more expensive and the Government of India have to take responsibility of adjusting prices. Then, the nation needs a strategic perspective and must strive for its rightful place in the world. Regional parties do not have any of these responsibilities, nor are they required to articulate their position on various national and international issues. They can just blame the centre and carry out populist agitations to get votes.

During the independence movement Congress attracted dedicated and talented youth in large numbers. Even now, Congress attracts people with a nationalist, secular and left-of-centre ideological position. On the other hand there are parties which do their politics around caste, religion, region in the pursuit of electoral success fragmenting the polity and these parties offer platforms for various short-cuts.

Poorer states like Odisha need rapid national economic growth much more than the richer states. We want impediments to growth to be removed through reforms. Often, there is a tendency to consider views of regional parties in power in a state as the voice of the people. Not necessarily. People want development and growth and that is what we in Odisha Congress are articulating. Rapid growth will generate jobs. Our farmers will get the marketing linkage and come out of subsistence agriculture. We have seen the benefit of the first generation of reforms that decreased unemployment and removed nearly 200 million people in the country out of the curse of poverty. Rapid growth also improves the resource position of the Government to invest in the social sector and in the development of infrastructure. The regional party in power in Odisha has a myopic and populist focus. They have failed to improve the situation of the farmers and have done nothing in the manufacturing sector, particularly SMEs and MMEs without which employment creation will not be possible. They are opposing or ambiguous about the reforms required to facilitate rapid growth. All that BJD has been looking at is taking credit for centrally funded developmental programmes and blaming the centre for supposed neglect. In fact, economic growth is not in the agenda of BJD A or BJD B.

Did people elect the BJD to be divided into A and B teams and fight publicly. ‘A’ calling ‘B’ as a ‘thief and Beiman’, ‘B’ responding by calling ‘A’ as an autocrat who is running a Stalinist regime. Did people elect the BJD to clash on the streets to settle leadership issues? I leave it to you to decide if this naked and public power game is about differences over ideology and do they serve the interest of the people of Odisha in any manner? Is this why they were given such a huge mandate in the last election? Why are they fighting and over what? We need a nationalist perspective, a focus on economic growth and on policies away from personal ambitions, parochial considerations and myopic political agenda. Let me quote a few lines from an article by Kanti Bajpai in the Times of India on 26 May, 2012.

“The view that the states should be more powerful rests on the assumption that the Centre is undemocratic and that virtue resides in state governments. This is hilarious. As veteran journalist T N Ninan points out, the chief ministers are populist demagogues, presidential in the way they run their parties and states. They tolerate no opposition and humiliate their own party members as well as the state administrators with total abandon. The behaviour of these elected satraps is comical and clownish for the most part.”

I rest my case.