Naveen Gears Up For 2014

With chief minister Naveen

Patnaik’s new team having
settled down, the government
will make a sincere bid to achieve
the targets it has set for itself before the
2014 elections. The Biju Janata Dal is
also gearing up for the next poll battle.
The party and the government must act
in sync if Patnaik has to get a record
fourth term in office.
The chief minister is not taking any
chances because it is going to be a tough
battle, one which he has to fight without
his former advisor Pyari Mohan Mohapatra.
The last two elections were choreographed
for the BJD by the Rajya Sabha
MP who has fallen out of favour with
Patnaik in the wake of an alleged coup
bid that failed.
For Patnaik, having Mohapatra by his
side had its own advantages. The latter,
a bureaucrat-turned-politician with
years of administrative experience, was
an excellent organizer who bonded well
with the younger generation leaders of
the party. He, as a matter of principle,
ensured that the party did enough
groundwork in the constituencies before
picking up its candidates.
The strategy paid rich dividends and
made Patnaik’s job easy, although he remained
the chief vote catcher for the
party – its infallible mascot with a lilywhite
public image. In the absence of
Mohapatra, the chief minister either has
to take the entire burden himself or
scout for an equally good replacement,
one that he can trust in every way.
If sources in the ruling party are to be
believed, Patnaik, having once burnt his
fingers, is unlikely to place his entire
trust in any particular leader though he
may pick up a few for legwork. The entire
burden of planning campaigns and
fighting elections would, more likely
than not, would not be borne by the
chief minister himself. There may be arguments
that it is physically not possible
for any leader to orchestrate an entire
election for his party on his own. But
Patnaik is not an ordinary leader and he
never ceases to surprise his own party
leaders. His busy schedule as the state’s
top administrator notwithstanding he
has tremendous reserves of energy on
which he would draw during the elections.
He is likely to control the entire
show much in the same manner as he
managed the campaign of PA Sangma
after proposing his name for the office
of the president. But for Patnaik’s backing
Sangma would not have managed
the votes that he got ultimately though
it did not prove enough to win the contest.
Patnaik, in fact, has begun preparing
for the 2014 battle which would be
the acid test of his charisma. If party
sources are to be believed, the chief
minister has told his ministerial colleagues
as well as the officials heading
the district administrations to focus on
welfare schemes, especially those developed
to benefit tribals, dalits and
women. He has asked them to be particularly
zealous about the implementation
of the cheap rice scheme, the
flagship welfare programme of the government.
What makes the chief minister particularly
concerned about the execution of
this programme is the number of complaints
that the government has received
from the districts about pilferage
of the Rs2-a-kg rice which is distributed
through the public distribution system
(PDS). There have been allegations of
middlemen in connivance with government
officials cornering the rice quota
of the poor and then selling it in the
open market at much higher rates. Some
other welfare schemes, too, have raised
concerns. The mid-day meals being
catered to children in government
schools have been the source of a number
of scams, one of which claimed the
job of a minister last year when raids led
to the recovery of substandard pulses
being supplied for this scheme. Though
ever since the government has tightened
the screws on officials dealing with the
mid-day meal programme, there are still
complaints about small-time politicians
in districts influencing them to provide
substandard food material for cooking.
In the past, there have also been cases of
caste discrimination, with dalits cooks
being prevented by higher caste people
from entering the mid-day meal
kitchens in schools. The entry of women
self-help groups into the arena has resulted
in some improvement in the implementation
of MDM programme but
the government needs to make extra efforts
to ensure that the beneficiaries are
actually convinced of its utility. This is
important because the target group
happens to be the lowest section of the
society which Patnaik has been assiduously
cultivating as a vote bank.
The chief minister is equally keen to
ensure the complete success of Mission
Shakti which was launched with much
fanfare to empower women, specially
those coming from the disadvantaged
sections by engaging them in economically
profitable activities via self-help
group strategy. The programme, though
a resounding success in most areas,
leaves much to be desired in some faroff
districts where the officials, who are
assisted by NGOs in this venture, have
failed to meet the expectations.
Rampant unemployment, too, remains
a cause of concern for the government
which had pinned great hopes on
industrialization. However, despite the
best efforts of Patnaik, some of the
mega-industries which could have generated
large-scale downstream jobs,
have not been able to take off. While the
POSCO’s proposed mega steel project
near Paradip is still stuck, the progress
of Arcelor Mittal project in Keonjhar district
has been indifferent. Even Vedanta
group’s alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in
Kalahandi district is facing closure with
bauxite becoming increasingly scarce.
With company’s hopes of extracting
bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills yet to
materialize and mines even outside the
state unable to provide the required
amount of raw material, there is a cloud
over the future of the refinery. If the big
industries fail, the job scene is bound to
look bleak. All this notwithstanding, Patnaik
is confident of turning things in the
favour of his party before the next elections.
He is not just the mascot of his
party but now also its crisis man.