New Delhi: This is a minor setback, but still a setback for the proponents of a Third Front or a Federal Front in the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary polls. “There is no possibility of a Third Front as far as I am concerned. Not now,” remarked Odisha Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo Naveen Patnaik.
The Odisha Chief Minister called on PM Modi here on May 11, signalling some political messages. Naveen Patnaik had last met PM Modi on May 30, 2022, just a few weeks before the presidential polls in New Delhi.
Of course, winning over BJD, which has 12 members in the Lok Sabha, would have been a major booster for the proponents of a front of non-BJP and non-Congress parties.
The BJD-BJP alliance captured power in Odisha, ousting the Congress in March 2000. But nine years later, ahead of the 2009 general and Assembly polls, Naveen Patnaik had decided to go it alone.
Naveen Patnaik has recently met Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee and also his Bihar counterpart and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar. He had ruled out any possibility of any future political alliance or front earlier too. Now, Naveen Patnaik called on PM Modi in Delhi and later said, “I spoke to him about Sri Jagannath International Airport, which is being set up in Puri”.
He further said the boundary for the airport is already earmarked. “We want an expansion as Bhubaneswar is getting too much traffic now. The PM Modi said he will definitely help in every way possible,” the Chief Minister said.
The BJD is unlikely to change its policy of maintaining equal distance from the BJP and Congress, at least before the 2024 general and Assembly polls.
The elections to the Odisha assembly are due by April-May 2024, along with the Lok Sabha polls.
The Odisha CM, on May 11, reaffirmed his party’s policy to fight elections on its own, without nurturing any national ambition. When asked if his party will go alone in the next year’s polls, Naveen Patnaik said this has always been the principle of his party.
Naveen Patnaik, 76 and son of legendary Odisha leader Biju Patnaik has been in power in the State since March 2000. Earlier, BJD used to be an NDA constituent, but though it quit the alliance in 2009, for all practical purposes, the party is considered a ‘soft’ ally of the BJP.
The floor coordination between BJD and BJP too is generally smooth, and the political competition between these two parties hardly goes bitter or ‘personal’ at the national level. On major policy issues and controversial Bills, the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD generally has backed the BJP in both Houses of Parliament.
The Odisha-based regional party also stood with the NDA Government on matters like demonetisation, “surgical” strike and the scrapping of Article 370.
In 2012, the BJD and BJP had come together along with some other parties in supporting the candidature of P A Sangma as the candidate for Presidential polls against Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee.
At present, BJD has eight members in the Rajya Sabha.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP made substantial gains, winning as many as eight seats. This was a quantum leap from just one it had won in 2014. In contrast, the Naveen Patnaik-led party remained contended with 12 seats recording a drop of eight seats from 20 it had picked up in 2014 out of 21 parliamentary seats in the State.
For the BJP, the vote percentage swing too was significant – the saffron party could poll 38.4 per cent as against the 16.9 it had managed five years back.
However, in the State assembly polls, BJD could retain its hold, winning 112 seats in the 147-member Assembly. The BJP could win 23 while the Congress strength had dropped to 9 – a sharp drop from the 16 seats it had won in 2014.
Notably, the BJD had also extended support to the Rajya Sabha candidature of bureaucrat-turned-politician Ashwini Vaishnaw, now Railway and IT Minister, in June 2019, when the BJP had fielded him despite not having adequate numbers in the Assembly.
The meeting between the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister hence carries some critical political significance.
The saffron party has recently appointed a leader with RSS background, Manmohan Samal, as its State unit president.
