AN EITHER/OR QUESTION

The BJD faces a near-existential dilemma in taking on the BJP in the state

- Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

THE BIJU JANATA DAL (BJD), which lorded over Odisha for over two decades, finds itself in a bind. Looming in front of it are two near-existential choices: whether to support or move a no-confidence motion against the BJP-led state government, and which side to back in the upcoming vice-presidential election.

Both decisions could inflect the BJD's political destiny. Its old stance of equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP had value and strategic sense in the past. Would it be wise to tread the same line now? Or would it be the deepest folly, exposing it to allegations of opportunism or, worse, irrelevance?