Political Suicide, Says Ex-MP Tathagata Satpathy As BJD Abstains From V-P Election Voting

Bhubaneswar: “Political suicide” is how former MP Tathagata Satpathy described Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) decision to abstain from voting in the Vice Presidential election on Tuesday.

“Orissa’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), by deciding not to vote in tomorrow’s Vice Prez election, seems to have hara kiri-ed its total political existence … whatever little remained,” Satpathy wrote in a late night post on X along with a modified version of the BJD logo in black.

The regional party, which had failed to open its account in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, has seven MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

According to party insiders, a majority of the senior BJD leaders favoured voting against the NDA candidate to send out a message to the people and to stay relevant in state politics where the BJP is in power, but left the final decision to Naveen, who after meeting a group of the party MPs in Delhi, took the call to stay away from voting.

BJD MP Sasmit Patra said that it was part of the party’s policy of “maintaining an equal distance” from both the BJP-led NDA and Congress-led INDIA bloc at the national level. “Our entire focus is on the development of the state and its 4.5 crore people,” he added.

The predicament here was that supporting the Congress-led INDIA alliance candidate would have done no good to the party.

While Opposition termed the BJD’s decision to abstain from voting as a tactical support to the NDA nominee, having been in the past dubbed as an unofficial ally of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, many see it as a well thought out strategy to manage the growing dissent within the party over its perceived tilt towards the central government, which was considered as a major reason for its electoral setback in the 2024 Assembly polls.

The BJD had supported the NDA in the presidential and VP elections in 2022.

Discontent simmers within BJD

Earlier this year, the party saw its first major intra-party dissension since its defeat in the 2024 state elections following a shift in its stance during the voting on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill in the Rajya Sabha. Its unclear stand after initially opposing the Bill brought to the fore discontent and exposed fissures in the party.

A few months later, explosive statements by some senior leaders further validated that all was not well in the party. Therefore, the decision to abstain from voting is being seen by many as an escape route amid attempts to quell the internal dissent.

How BJD voted in the past

In 2012, Naveen announced the name of PA Sangma for the Presidential race and extended BJD’s support to him. However, in the Vice Presidential elections, the party abstained from voting, which UPA’s Hamid Ansari won defeating NDA’s Jaswant Singh.

In 2017, BJD carefully balanced its stand by supporting NDA’s Ram Nath Kovind for President and UPA’s Gopalakrishna Gandhi for Vice President, thereby maintaining equal distance from both national alliances.

The year 2022 saw a clear shift in the party’s stand as it backed both NDA nominees–Droupadi Murmu for President and Jagdeep Dhankhar for Vice President.