DH Interview | No 'friendly fight' between BJP and BJD in Odisha; BJD spread rumours to stave off declining popularity: Jay Panda

Days before the polling on June 1, Baijayant (Jay) Panda took out time to speak to DH’s Kalyan Ray after a rally at Govindpur village.

Baijayant (Jay) Panda, a veteran Parliamentarian, with two stints each in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha in the last two decades, is contesting the 2024 Parliamentary election on a BJP ticket from Kendrapara, Odisha. Days before the polling on June 1, Panda took out time to speak to DH’s Kalyan Ray after a rally at Govindpur village. Excerpts:

DH: Before the election, there were talks of a BJD-BJP alliance amidst a narrative that a friendly fight between BJD and BJP will deny the opposition space to Congress. What’s your take?

JP: All of these are wrong. Congress doesn’t have anything left in Odisha. They are in single digits (vote share) now. Between BJP and BJD, there are no friendly ties at all. It was BJD that started spinning such rumours in a desperate attempt to stave off its declining popularity. In the last five year, people realised that whom they have voted for i.e. Naveen Patnaik is not in control. A non-Odia outsider (Naveen Patnaik close aide VK Pandian) is controlling the wheels of the government and the party. Over the last six months, this person has quit the government job and became party in-charge. He became the face of the BJD. But people don’t like a person, speaking bad Odia, to become the face of the BJD.

Because of its collapsing popularity, somewhere around Dec-Jan BJD leaders realised that they were not going to make it and desperately tried to set up an alliance. Normally when we do alliances, we go to the state and talk to senior leaders. But you never saw any BJP leader coming here in the last six-eight months and talking to BJD senior leaders for an alliance. It was BJD’s one man controller who was sitting in Delhi for weeks and trying to get an appointment with our leaders and tried to pitch the idea of an alliance. They were deliberately trying to create confusion in the minds of the public and BJP karyakartas. People reacted very negatively to such a thought. There is not a single element of friendly fight anywhere in the state.

BJD has another problem. Traditionally they used to change a huge number of MLAs to overcome anti-incumbency. This time they could not do it and MLAs are repeated because there are internal revolts. Despite many of their MLAs and ministers having criminal cases like rape and murder changes, they have not been able to change them because there will be such a revolt that the party will split. They are bearing the brunt of anti-incumbency. Congress is bearing the brunt of nobody being interested in their tickets. They don’t have many serious candidates.

DH: You are contesting from a seat, known to be a BJD stronghold for a long time. Biju Babu won it three times including in 1984 where there was a huge sympathy wave for Rajiv Gandhi. Last time you lost while fighting on a BJP ticket. How confident are you this time?

JP: Yes, traditionally it is a seat that belongs to Janata party variants like Biju Janata Dal. Last time when I contested, I was a last minute entry. As a BJP candidate, the identification process was too short. But even then, as a BJP candidate, I got a 400% increase last time. BJP used to get about one lakh vote share and last time we got almost five lakh vote share. That itself was a good showing.

In my ten years (as BJD MP), I did a lot of good work. The railways came here. I built 24 mini stadiums in villages from my MPLADS fund and 54 very large drinking water projects, with one lakh capacity each, across the Lok Sabha. Even when I was not an MP, I kept in touch with people, visiting and travelling to Kendrapara more than most MPs do. Every year hundreds of families approach me for help. Because of the lack of jobs here, lakhs of youth work outside the state and country. Very often they are exploited by labour agents or unethical employers.

Also accidents happen. I have set up a system of rescuing most of them with the help of embassies and consulates. And finally this time, there is a massive wave of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. There is also a very strong anti-incumbency in Odisha because even after 25 years, lakhs of people have to go out for work and are not getting basic necessities like water. People are fed up. Now there is a clear shift towards BJP.

DH: Kendrapara is an agrarian area and is known for sending plumbers across the world. But even with two ports close by, why aren’t there any industries ?

JP: Kendrapara is one of the earliest municipalities, set up 150 years ago. People were trained in certain skill jobs like plumbing. So anywhere you go in the country, middle east or other parts of the world, you will find the plumbers are from Kendrapara.

But it should not be limited to being an agrarian locality as we have two ports on either side. I understand that without a railway line, there can’t be an industry and I worked very hard to bring the railway line here. But in the last five years, the BJD government didn’t do anything. This time one of the Modi Guarantees is to set up an industrial corridor between Dhamra and Paradip ports and Kendrapara is at the middle of the corridor. So industries will come here in a very big way.

DH: What’s the Puri Ratna Bhandar controversy? What happened to the keys?

JP: About 7-8 years ago, it became clear that the Chief Minister of Odisha has come under the control of an individual (V K Pandian), who is not from here. The problems started from there. Almost at the same time, the key of the Ratna Bhandar went missing. For Odias, Mahaprabhu Jagannath is integral to our culture and society. When the keys for thousands of years old Ratnabhandar housing a huge wealth was found missing, a judicial enquiry commission was set up but its report has not been made public. People are very worried and suspicious. An audit of the Ratna Bhandar is what we are asking for.

DH: Why is the outsider issue being raked up repeatedly?

JP: The influence of this outsider is clear because you do not see the Chief Minister alone at all. Wherever the Chief Minister is seen, one individual is always there even prompting the Chief Minister on what is to be said on the microphone. This made people worried.

They voted for Naveen Patnaik and not for somebody who has come from somewhere else. He can’t speak the language properly but is controlling the government and the party. Where are other leaders? Why aren’t the CM sharing the stage with other leaders? There are 40 star campaigners, what happened to the other 38? These are questions that people are asking.

DH: Do these issues fall under the overarching OdiaAsmita campaign?

JP: The root cause is one person. There are clear examples of exploitations. Odisha has a great deal of mineral wealth and as a result we have good generation of electricity. But the electricity generated in Odisha is sold in Odisha at a high price and the same electricity through the same vendor is sold to Tamil Nadu at substantially cheaper price. Suddenly there are contractors and businessmen from Tamil Nadu getting all contracts.

Why the people of Odisha and businessmen of Odisha are not involved in these developmental projects. They closed three of the four entrances of the Mahaprabhu temple. People are enraged by this. They overspent on the parikrama project and spent three times more than the Ram Mandir cost just to build a few toilets. Then to drum up some publicity they took out the deities of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra on auto rickshaws and pick up trucks. People are enraged by such acts because that’s not how you treat our deities.

Under the control of this one person, the Ratna Bhandar key went missing. Under his control our electricity is sold to his home state. Under his control Ayushman Bharat is not implemented in Odisha, purely for political reasons. They were taking credit for Modi government schemes like free rations and pucca houses. But they have been exposed on those fronts and can’t use them any longer. Since they can’t steal credit, they are stopping the Modi government schemes.

DH: There are also allegations of malpractices in the self-help group schemes, flaunted by the Naveen Patnaik government as one of its successes – what’s your take on that?

JP: The self help groups (SHGs) started under the leadership of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Under his supervision, when Naveen Patnaik first started, this was given importance. They have managed to take political credit for that in all these years. But in the last seven-eight years, women have been exploited. The SHGs that are originally for building their own livelihood have been turned into political tools, forcing women to attend the political gatherings. SHG women are coerced into coming to BJD rallies. They sat there sullenly and not cheering because they were compelled to come and attend.

DH: You spoke about Subhadra Yojna – what’s that?

JP: One of the Modi guarantees is to empower women and one such guarantee is to make them Lakhpati Didis to ensure that women should have an asset of at least a lakh of rupees and they become self-sufficient in their small little businesses and enterprises.

A quick way to jump start the scheme is to give a voucher of Rs 50,000 to each woman who can use it within two years. They have the capital for their small businesses. Our intention is to make them financially secure so that they don’t have to depend on handouts every week or every month so that they can take care of themselves and their families.

DH: If you are coming to power in the state, what are you going to offer to the people on Odisha on job creation?

JP: There are many options. First of all there are a large number of government jobs that the Odisha government hasn’t filled up. We have committed to fill up 65,000 government jobs within two years. We have guaranteed creation of lakhs of jobs with the investment on infrastructure. One example is Paradip-Dhamra industrial corridor with Kendrapara at the centre.

Also another industrial corridor will be set up including Sambalpur and Rourkella and extending till Paradip. The tourism potential of the state is immense as we have 500 km of coastline and rich cultural heritage. But we get a small pittance of the country’s total tourists footfall. In one such scheme, the BJD government is sitting on for more than 20 years on the Samuka beach project in Puri where they acquire 2000 acres of poor people’s land and is not going ahead with the project. As far as job creation is concerned, tourism, infrastructure and industrialisation will get a boost.