Is Patnaik jeopardising a guaranteed third-term by fragmenting the anti-Congress vote in Orissa? His local alliance with the Communists, NCP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha will result in an accretion of not more than 3.5 per cent vote, not enough to cover the shortfall from the BJP’s exit. A.B. Bardhan and Prakash Karat can secure Patnaik’s rehabilitation in the liberal intelligentsia; they are not in a position to match the BJP vote for vote.

If conspiracy theories that reverberate in Bhubaneshwar and small-town Orissa are to be believed, Patnaik has fallen prey to the personal agendas of Pyare Mohan Mahapatra — the ju-ju man of Orissa — and Jay Panda. That’s a load of rubbish. Patnaik is neither impressionable nor swayed by personal friendships. He has a reputation for cold calculation and, unlike his father, is not temperamentally volatile. Even if the local BJP needled him incessantly for the past five years, he has been on the best of terms with the BJP national leadership, particularly Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. The break-up of the BJD-BJP alliance happened on account of problems over seat-sharing. It was not an outcome of profound ideological differences.

Patnaik’s go-it-alone gamble is premised on two parallel assumptions, culled from the results of municipal and panchayat elections over the past two years. The local elections, which were fought by all the parties independently, saw dramatic increases in the strength of the BJD, minor gains for the Congress and significant losses for the BJP. In the municipal polls in Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack, held in the past six months, spectacular gains for the BJD were accompanied by pathetic Congress and BJP performances. Both cities were the home turf of two important BJP Cabinet ministers. Despite loud boasting, the BJP also performed very poorly in Kandhamal and Mayurbhanj district which have witnessed tensions over Christian missionary activity.

... contd.