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The governing party: The CM has a clean image. He has picked up many causes that need central govt. support and hammered them as issues over and over leading to success with respect to some of the causes. He achieved success in getting approval of the Vijaywada-Ranchi highway, getting NISER, getting an IIT, getting a central university and getting a National University. He has not been as much successful with respect to ad valorem lease rates for minerals, new railway lines as well as speeding up on currently approved Railway lines (e.g., Khurda – Balangir), getting international flights to Bhubaneswar, getting another operational airport in Orissa, etc.  Because of his clean image, and perhaps because he does not ask industrialists to pay bribes, he has been able to attract many industrial investments (making Orissa among the top states in India with respect to this parameter); some of them mega-projects. Although some of these investments have gone from paper to real spending of money, many of them, especially the mega ones (such as POSCO), are slow to get off the ground. 

However it seems that either all the ministers other than the CM were incompetent or they did not have trust of the CM. We are told, because of this almost all major decisions were taken at the CM’s level and many things were basically run by the bureaucrats. This of course meant that the voice of the people, as represented by the ministers who were elected by the people, were not heard.

I wish the BJD had been proactive in locating some good, honest, young, pro-development highly qualified and highly active in the community people such as Dr. Dhanada Mishra, Prof. Supriti Mishra, Dr. Sruti Mohapatra and mentored them into electoral politics. Such people would be wonderful junior ministers and oversee important programs like primary education (Dhanada’s speciality). Often times good people have to be found, encouraged and helped.

[It is often said, that most people in India are good, nice and hospitable. So if  a foreigner is in trouble and he/she randomly knocks a door in India, he/she will get help. However, if someone approaches a foreigner in India then the advise is to stay away from him as his motivation is suspect. The same analogy is often applicable to politics. If someone is desperate to join politics and become an MLA/MP/Minister then his/her intentions may not be that good. On the other hand good people who have shown their goodness and commitment to serve society need to be searched, encouraged and helped to become MLA/MP/Minister as they will really do good to the society.]

I believe the CM and his lieutenants Pyari babu and Baijayanta babu when they say that their focus is development of Orissa. (I have not heard CM Naveen babu taking a vacation during the last nine years; when he goes out of state, its mostly to Delhi and he is back as soon as the state’s business is done; and I think he has not made a foreign trip in the last 9 years. He seems to be fully dedicated to Orissa.) I hope they realize that they can not do everything by themselves and identify, recruit and help good people to get into their party and subsequently to the government.

Perhaps it is too late for this elections, but even now BJD can recruit the kind of people I mention above and rope them to help in the campaign. 

Opposition parties -Congress: They have tried to be watch dogs, which they are supposed to do. But often times, they have opposed things, even if they are beneficial to Orissa. They seem to follow the principle of "Cutting of the nose to spite the face." An example of this is the opposition to the Vedanta University.

No one active in Congress in Orissa has the clean image and/or stature of Naveen Patnaik. The Congress high command in New Delhi made a big mistake in not making Mr. Chandrasekhar Sahu, who has a clean image, a cabinet minister. If they had given him a high stature in Delhi, automatically he would have had a high stature in Orissa. Alternatively, they could have roped in Mr. Sam Pitroda, made him elected from Orissa (via Rajya Sabha) and made him a minister and slowly established him as a leader from Orissa. They could have also roped in Mr. Lalit Mansingh, ex-ambassador of India in the USA, who, I was told, was at one time, interested in electoral politics through Congress.

Congress did none of these.

They waited until it was too late and then created a joint leadership of Mr. KP Singh Deo (who has been acting like a king), Mr. Ramchandra Ulaka (nice man; good personal record in election wins; but no base in coastal Orissa), Mr. Srikant Jena (has good smart friends who help him with ideas, arguments and posters, but is the perfect example of practising "Cutting of the nose to spite the face" with no positive ideas so far) and Mr. Bhakta Das (similar as Mr. Jena; good at stopping development; but no positive ideas so far). Then they repeatedly insulted the hard working Youth Congress President Rohit Pujari, who got fed up and quit and joined BJD.

If Congress wants to revive in Orissa, it must create a leader that can match Naveen Patnaik’s stature and also follow the earlier suggestion of identifying good, pro-development, highly qualified and highly active in the community people and recruit them to its fold and help them rise.

Opposition party – BJP: They really have no good leaders in Orissa. As its stands it is a party which maintains close relations with groups such as Bajrang Dal, RSS etc. (generally referred to as the Sangh Parivaar) who are alleged to have been involved in post-Godhra Gujarat pogrom in 2002 [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], killings in Kandhamala last year, and violence and arson in Karnataka. So until they own up to their divisiveness, apologize to the nation, and change track, I hope and pray that not withstanding some excellent and highly competent people they have (such as Arun Jaitely), their dedication towards India, their good ideas, and their good governance in some states, that they do not come to power in Delhi.

[Note that Congress was allegedly involved in the 1984 Sikh riots where it is alleged that more people were butchered by the then Congress associated goons. However, Congress has owned up to its mistakes, apologized to the nation and punished some of the lead perpetrators. **There is some disturbing word that some of the alleged perpretators are being given tickets this time. If this is true, then Congress is also up to no good.**]

In any case, despite a couple of BJP people in Orissa such as Mr. Kharavela Swain, who has been a good parliamentarian, I don’t see much hope for BJP in Orissa. Neither they have good people of stature, nor is their ideology particularly attractive to peaceful people of Orissa.

Opposition party – CPI, CPI-M: They are useful as watch dogs but more often follow the principle of "Cutting of the nose to spite the face." On their own they will hardly win any MP seat and may win a couple of MLA seats. But through their opportunistic alliance they may win an MP seat this time. They have not much hope in Orissa.

Opposition party -Samrudha Orissa: Jatish babu seems sincere in his goal to get Orissa out of its poverty. I wish he had come out and done something for Orissa before going on campaigning and saying his party will do this and that. Why should we believe him? What has he done for Orissa so far?

Other opposition parties: Not worth talking about at this point.