Congress celebration employees in Odisha fought a pitched battle with the police on Thursday as they tried to picket the Odisha legislative meeting, alleging rise in crimes in opposition to girls and the suspension of the celebration’s 14 MLAs from the meeting. The Congress celebration’s protest rallies marked a dramatic escalation of its marketing campaign in opposition to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) authorities within the state.
Police personnel lathi-charge Congress protesters close to the Odisha meeting in Bhubaneswar. (PTI Photograph)
Police baton-charged the protesters, lobbed tear fuel shells and used water cannon to disperse Congress employees as they broke barricades to march in direction of the meeting. The Congress employees, in flip, pelted stones and hurled chairs alongside the Mahatma Gandhi Marg resulting in the meeting, injuring two police personnel, and tried to set a police van on fireplace.
The suspensions of the MLAs, introduced by speaker Surama Padhy, got here as a response to Congress MLAs repeatedly disrupting home proceedings.
The celebration has seized on the emotive concern of ladies’s security, citing chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s personal admission within the meeting that over 36,000 girls and eight,400 kids have gone lacking within the state. Their persistence resulted in chaos with a Congress MLA climbing the Speaker’s podium as scuffles erupted with BJP legislators. The celebration’s state president, Bhakta Charan Das, condemned the suspension of all 14 Congress MLAs calling it as an assault on democratic norms and authorities’s authoritarianism.
The dual spectacle of picketing and suspension of MLAs has thrust Congress into the highlight, signaling a calculated try to nook the opposition house in Odisha — a state the place it has lengthy struggled to regain political relevance. In latest months, the Congress has noticeably ramped up its political actions in Odisha, aiming to reclaim the opposition house in a state lengthy dominated by the Biju Janata Dal and the BJP.
A strategic pivot
Political analyst Satya Prakash Sprint mentioned the Congress’s technique hinges on mining public discontent with the BJP-led authorities. “By highlighting governance failures, corruption, and social justice issues, particularly in tribal-dominated regions like Koraput and Nabarangpur, Congress is attempting to rebuild its political credibility,” he mentioned.
Although it has simply 14 MLAs within the 147-member Meeting, Congress has stepped into the political vacuum because it senses a chance within the state’s politics after Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) shock defeat final 12 months. After dropping the meeting polls, BJD appears to have adopted a surprisingly low profile and, regardless of being the principal opposition celebration with 51 MLAs, its actions have been restricted to sporadic statements and symbolic gestures, similar to complaining to the Election Fee over alleged voting discrepancies within the 2024 polls. With celebration president Naveen Patnaik avoiding the aggressive opposition function anticipated of a pacesetter along with his stature, Congress has chosen to undertake confrontational techniques — a stark distinction to the BJD’s passivity.
Nevertheless, BJD chief Debi Prasad Mishra dismissed the notion of BJD being passive as the first opposition celebration. “Naveen Patnaik has been focusing on party unity and preparing for an effective opposition role. The party’s decision to raise concerns with the Election Commission about the 2024 election data indicates its intent to remain relevant and challenge the BJP’s narrative,” he mentioned.
Will BJP be the unintended beneficiary
Political analysts, nevertheless, have raised a important query: Will the Congress celebration’s seeming resurgence be extra useful to the BJP than being detrimental? The arithmetic of electoral politics suggests a nuanced situation.
Within the 2024 parliamentary and meeting elections, the BJP received 78 Meeting seats and 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats. The BJD, after 24 years of uninterrupted energy underneath Patnaik, was decreased to the opposition benches with 51 seats. The Congress’s aggressive positioning might fragment the anti-BJP vote. Historic information exhibits that in 2019 and 2024, the BJD and BJP collectively secured over 80% of the vote share, leaving Congress with nearly 15% votes. If Congress manages to double its vote share to 30%, it’d erode the BJD’s assist base with out considerably difficult the BJP’s core vote financial institution of 40%. The Congress’s try to reclaim opposition house would possibly mirror its experiences in states like Gujarat, the place a fragmented opposition inadvertently strengthened the BJP.