BJD future seems uncertain as it abstains from VP poll
Bhubaneswar, Sept 9 (UNI) The decision on part of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the principal opposition party in Odisha, to abstain from 2025 Vice President poll has led analysts to believe that the regional party is steadily losing relevance nationally, almost 15 months after it lost power to BJP after 24 years of uninterrupted rule in the state.
BJD, headed by Naveen Patnaik, lost to BJP in both the 2024 Assembly polls and Lok Sabha polls. Patnaik, who never eyed pan-India expansion of the party, failed to check the BJP’s electoral juggernaut after staying at the helm in the State for a record 24 years.
The party, which governed the state uninterruptedly from 2000 to 2024, suffered its worst poll debacle by drawing a blank in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It now remains content with 7 Rajya Sabha members with two of its elected members switching fences to BJP after the poll debacle and promptly re-elected to the Upper House on BJP ticket.
Speculation was rife that BJD which supported ruling NDA in several key issues in the past 11 years may vote in favour of INDIA bloc candidate for the VP poll being held today as several party stalwarts were in favour of such a move to reinvent itself to get rid of pro-BJP image following the electoral loss in 2024 twin polls.
The move to abstain has apparently dented the regional party’s image.
BJD’s strength in both the Houses was truncated after the Lok Sabha poll drubbing. The party’s Rajya Sabha strength has also been trimmed to seven after two MPs Sujit Kumar and Mamata Mahant defected to the BJP and were promptly re-nominated by the saffron party.
Though the regional party lacked the numbers to stamp out a massive impact in the VP polls, casting vote for INDIA bloc rather than decision to abstain could have sent a message louder that the party does not serve the interest of ruling alliance at the Centre.
A social media post of Tathagata Satapathy, former BJD MP and editor of a leading Odia daily, that the regional party was resorting to self-destruction sums up steadily eroding political relevance of the regional party at least in national political scenario.
“Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), by deciding to abstain in the Vice Prez election, seems to have harakiried its total political existence whatever little remained”, Satapathy, who quit active politics in 2019, stated in a post on X.
The BJD move to abstain from the VP poll has triggered an avalanche of adverse reaction in social media circles. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das slammed the BJD saying that BJD & BJP are two sides of the same coin and that Congress was the only opposition in Odisha and BJD’s decision to abstain from vote has proved it.
This is nothing but a tacit endorsement of the BJP. Naveen Patnaik has opted to protect himself rather than his party. Senior BJD leaders are clearly afraid of Central agencies breathing down their necks, he charged.
Even inside the BJD, unease is palpable. Several senior leaders privately admit that the abstention has dented the party’s claim of being the principal opposition to the BJP in Odisha. “Had MPs been allowed a conscience vote, as during the Waqf Bill, many would have backed the INDIA bloc candidate,” confided a veteran functionary.
By choosing not to take a stand, the BJD has once again left itself open to accusations of double-speak. Its assertion of “equidistance” looks increasingly hollow, as it has, over the past decade, sided with the BJP at the national level.
BJD’s stand in the previous VP polls is varied. It abstained from the 2012 poll, in which Hamid Ansari won. It backed non-NDA candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the 2017 poll, in which Venkaiah Naidu won. In 2022, it extended its support to NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar.
