A high-stakes battle in Odisha

The killing of former Health Minister Naba Das has set off a political storm in Odisha with the opposition mounting a blistering attack on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) alleging a deeper conspiracy and accusing the ruling party of an attempted cover up. While the murder mystery remains unsolved after 22 days despite the arrest of the alleged killer cop Gopal Das from the spot, the issue refuses to die down and has put the Naveen Patnaik government in the dock. Even the man on the street is not buying the killing as an open and shut case, as the Crime Branch (CB) probe would have them believe. Reason being the CB's inability to establish the motive of the killing despite having the accused ASI in police custody for 12 whole days and subjecting him to intense grilling, narco and polygraph tests. All that the promptly constituted probe team headed by the high profile IPS officer, Arun Bothra, has made public is the ASI has confessed tohave shot Das dead because `he was not a good man.' This seems ludicrous in the face of several theories doing the rounds about the possible reasons behind the killing.

Coming as it does in the pre-election year, the deteriorating law and order issue has provided effective ammunition for opposition parties, especially the BJD's principal foe, BJP that has grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The saffron party has hit the streets in a big way organizing rallies, demonstrations and gheraoes of public offices as it has turned the heat on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik charging the latter with a `superficial investigation' into the murder and highlighting the sharp rise in major crimes in the state. Clearly on the backfoot, the ruling BJD has deployed its usual diversionary tactics by raising the central apathy card through statewide protests to blunt the attack. At the moment, the battle lines appear to have been drawn by both sides. With elections just a year away, both parties seem to have abandoned the much touted bonhomie they shared even as the Modi-Shah duo has targeted regional parties across the country. The narrative is apparently changing in Odisha, too.

Questioning the role of the government, state BJP leaders have gone to the extent of terming Das' killing as an `arranged' one where the police was `used' to eliminate a formidable leader of western Odisha. Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, Jaynarayan Mishra, the BJP legislator from Sambalpur, has so far been the most vociferous on the subject. To score a point against the state government, he returned the personal security officer (PSO) provided to him soon after Das' murder. It was unsafe, he said, to have a PSO when a cop could gun down a Minister in broad daylight and in full public gaze. But just as the BJP's no-holds-barred attack on the government was gaining momentum, Mishra's over zealousness led him to commit a blunder which BJD lapped up and turned the table on its main rival. The recent unsavoury incident that happened in Sambalpur during a BJP rally where Mishra and a lady Inspector of police were seen shoving each other in a fit of rage has, no doubt, come as a big embarrassment for the party. The party seems to have lost the plot that it was building up so neatly. Mishra's conduct of pushing the lady cop which went viral has raised hackles of many and the demand for his removal from the post is getting shriller.

Despite the botched plot, BJP leadership is in no mood to relent and is backing Mishra solidly, upping the ante against the BJD alleging that the police are acting as the ruling party's workers and being used to silence the opposition and critics. What is unacceptable to them is the police misbehaviour towards the Leader of Opposition though Mishra's alibi that the lady cop stepped on his feet during the scuffle and that he pushed her to escape pain sounds utterly frivolous. BJD's response to this incident is equally shabby and condemnable. The ransacking of the Sambalpur circuit house by unruly BJD workers while looking for Mishra a day after the incident and one of its front ranking leaders and former DGP of Maharashtra, Arup Patnaik's veiled threat to the former in a party rally has invited derision from all quarters. As the faceoff between the rival parties escalates over the role of police in general and its failure to solve many high profile and sensational murders in the state, Mishra and his supporters have brought in a fresh allegation that the BJD goons came to lynchhim in the circuit house. He did not stop at that.

Subsequently, he claimed that he is being targeted because unlike other Opposition leaders, the state government could not `manage' him in the assembly and has threatened to spill the beans in the forthcoming budget session. Amid the demand for Mishra's removal and BJP's insistence on an apology from the lady cop there seems no let-up to this high drama. As both parties know the stakes are high.