The mask has fallen off. And the pretence done away with.
At an informal level, they have always been in an alliance since Modi rode to power at the Centre in 2014. But it is now high time the two parties involved – the BJD and the BJP – accorded it a formal shape. Though it might, at first sight, appear as an absurd proposition, such a course actually makes sound political sense for both the parties involved. For one thing, it would ensure what both parties want: to rule together both in Odisha and at the Centre in a customized version of the ‘double engine’ government that the BJP is so obsessed with. (Anyone who believes the BJP has – or ever had - any plans of making a serious bid to wrest power from Naveen Patnaik in the 2024 elections knows nothing about politics!). For another, it would save both of them from the embarrassment of having to deny their ‘illicit relationship’ in the public. Reviving the formal alliance would be less of an embarrassment. After all, the two parties were in bed together for 11 long years before splitting in 2009. And it is not uncommon for estranged partners to remarry - not in personal relationships and certainly not in politics which, as everyone knows, makes strange bedfellows!
That the BJD will oppose the no-confidence motion moved by the combined Opposition against the NDA government was a no-brainer. A party that has backed the Modi government on every single issue – including issues of as far-reaching consequences as the NRC, CAA and the abolition of Article 370 – could hardly have been expected to back the Opposition-sponsored no-trust vote. But what really showed the true colours of the BJD was its support for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023. It proved, if any proof was needed at all, that the BJD claim of ‘issue-based’ support to the Modi government was an eyewash all along. What it has sought to pass off as ‘issue-based’ support actually meant ‘unconditional support on any issue’!
Had the BJD’s support been ‘issue-based’, it should have been the first party to oppose the Delhi Services Bill. After all, it has to do with taking away an elected government’s power and control over civil services. As the supreme leader of a regional party who runs his government through officers and has pushed elected representatives, including ministers, into complete irrelevance, Naveen should have been the first to see red and oppose the Bill. Imagine for a moment that the Modi government brings a similar Bill in case of Odisha or, for that matter, in respect of all ‘full’ states. Would the BJD support that as well? Where will it leave his ‘5T’ model of governance in which babus rule the roost? But then Naveen’s politics has never been shackled by principles. He has always been a consummate practitioner of ‘realpolitik’.
Even in terms of ‘realpolitik’, however, it would have made eminent political sense for the BJD to oppose the Delhi Bill because it would have given the party the fig leaf to gloat that it has stayed true to its professed claims of ‘issue-based’ support to the government and ‘equi-distance’ from the two rival power blocs. Opposition to the Opposition’s no-trust motion then would not have appeared as a complete ‘sell out’ to the BJP as it does now. The passion with which Puri MP Pinaki Mishra defended the Centre’s ‘right’ to legislate on the matter in Parliament was really touching. It proved that the most trusted ally of the BJP is not in the NDA, but outside it. And no prizes for guessing who it is!
In backing the Delhi Service Bill, the BJD supremo may have laid himself open to the charge of being an unabashed supporter of the Modi government. But as someone whose political instincts are much sharper than that of his rivals, he knows what he is doing. He knows that he would not have to pay a political cost for this alleged act of ‘abject surrender’. His stock with the voters is not going to dwindle because of this act. (In fact, his apologists can be trusted to sell it as a political ‘masterstroke’ that not only keeps central agencies like the CBI, ED and Income Tax at bay but also allows him to wrest more concessions from the Modi government!) He knows that it will be the BJP that will have to pay a heavy price in the next elections – as it has paid all along – because of a crisis of credibility. The spirited attacks by state BJP leaders would now sound hollower than ever.
As good friend Debendra Prusty said in a perceptive post on Facebook, “Sometimes, even support can be a deadly weapon in politics’!
(DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are the author’s own and have nothing to do with OTV’s charter or views. OTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)