WHO AFTER Naveen Patnaik in Odisha? “Naveen babu is fine for us,” smiles Suraj Behera, who works for a private telecom operator in Sambalpur. But after him? His long-time aide V K Pandian? “No, Pandian is not Odia… After Naveen babu… I don’t know. I cannot think of anyone else as of now.”
In this routine election conversation that The Indian Express had at a marketplace in Kadligarh, in Sambalpur district, during one of the many pit stops across the state, lies Odisha’s present political reality and its challenge for the future. It’s a challenge that both the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Odisha’s ruling party that has had an uninterrupted 24-year rule in the state with Patnaik at the helm, and the principal Opposition party in the state, the BJP, will have to grapple with.
But at least for now, with Odisha in the midst of a long-drawn election stretching across four phases between May 13 and June 1, Patnaik’s personal appeal could be the BJD’s biggest advantage as he seeks a record sixth term in office. The state is voting in simultaneous elections to both the Assembly (147 seats) and Lok Sabha (21 seats).
On the other hand, the BJP, off to a delayed start after the alliance talks with the BJD sputtered to a stop, hasn’t been able to find a face that can be protected as its alternative to Patnaik. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has already visited the state thrice since the elections were announced, has not projected a particular leader, or a group of leaders, as the party’s face in the state.
Patnaik’s personal pull
At her home in Paikapada village, in Kabisuryanagar Assembly constituency, Ganjam district, Pratima Bisoyi, 47, is attending a meeting of the women’s self-help group (SHG). She earns Rs 4,000 a month as a member of the SHG that has been given the contract of managing mandis in the panchayat through the Patnaik government’s Shakti scheme. Launched in 2001, the scheme, with an annual budget of Rs 2,761 crore, ensures bank loans to SHGs to take up various economic and livelihood activities.
“I never thought I would earn for myself. At least I don’t have to depend on my husband for money,” says Pratima, adding that the Patnaik government’s other scheme, Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, is a “blessing”. The scheme entitles women to free treatment for up to Rs 10 lakh a year, double of what men are entitled to.
Like Pratima, women often talk of Patnaik as a “protector” of their interests. And Patnaik has rarely failed them. Under him, the party has built a committed vote bank of women voters. Much before the Centre launched a scheme for pregnant women, the Odisha government launched ‘Mamata’, under which it provides Rs 5,000 to pregnant and lactating women.
In December 2022, when the BJD celebrated its silver jubilee, Patnaik reminded his partymen that the party would “survive another century” if women’s empowerment remained central to its programme. During the 16th Lok Sabha, BJD MPs met leaders of other political parties to rally support for the Women’s Reservation Bill. The party has walked the talk by fielding 33% women for the Lok Sabha elections, both in 2019 and this time.
“Ever since Patnaik launched Mission Shakti, he has never had to try too hard to seek the support of women in the state. In turn, Odisha’s women have not given up on him,” Sandeep Sahu, a Bhubaneswar-based political analyst, told The Indian Express.
The 77-year-old Patnaik’s personal appeal, however, rides on more than just his targeted welfare schemes. His acceptance and credibility is largely in part due to his “clean” image. In his 24 years in power, Patnaik has kept away from scams and irregularities and has publicly cracked down on his colleagues when they faced corruption allegations.
But now, with the BJP snapping at the BJD’s heels, Patnaik has fallen back on a tried and tested formula: tapping into Odia aspirations.
“The BJD is a creation of the people of the state who have consistently rejected national parties. Patnaik formed the BJD by breaking away from the Janata Dal to capitalise on Odia pride. It’s true that national parties have come in between but they got rejected whenever there was a regional alternative,” said Tathagata Satpathy, a former BJD MP and editor of the Odia daily Dharitri.
Despite being an accidental politician, Patnaik, an alumnus of Doon School and Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, understood this about the state. Odisha was the first state to be born of linguistic pride. And so, unlike many other regional leaders, Patnaik never tried to expand his party beyond the borders of the state.
Vote share of major parties in Odisha.
For someone who is still not fluent in Odia – political observers claim this has only added to his enigma — in his communications with the party cadre and voters, mostly done via recorded video messages, Patnaik has called for the “national party” (read BJP) to be rejected to protect the “unique identity” of the state.
Party leaders, however, admit to a major chink in this strategy: the emergence of the Tamil-origin Pandian in the BJD power circles. In mid-February, after he took voluntary retirement from the IAS, Pandian, a 2000-batch officer of the Odisha cadre, was appointed chairman of the government’s flagship Nabin Odisha and Vision 5T, with the rank of Cabinet minister. A month later, he joined the BJD.
The Pandian factor
With Patnaik arguably matching Modi in popularity and acceptance among the voters, the BJP has latched onto ‘Odiya Asmita (Odia pride)’, hoping to capitalise on the perceived disquiet over Pandian’s rise in the party. From Sambalpur to Bhubaneswar, Nabarangpur to Mayurbanj, most voters, even among BJD supporters, baulk at the idea of Pandian succeeding Patnaik.
“We have been choosing Naveen babu… He is fine… But we cannot accept Pandian, he is from Tamil Nadu. There should be an Odia,” says Suraj Behera, who works in Sambalpur. “Sankha people (sankha or the conch, referring to the BJD’s symbol) have already become arrogant and in some places, their musclemen run the party. If Pandian takes charge, it will be worse.”
The strategist that he is, Pandian has deftly made it a point to focus the campaign on Patnaik. “Do not look at who’s your candidate… Vote for Naveen babu,” he tells voters. The BJD’s narrative — apparently Pandian’s brainchild — that the voters could lose the benefits of the social welfare schemes in the event of the BJP coming to power seems to have stuck.
Though many in the party as well as BJD voters reject the possibility of Pandian succeeding Patnaik, others concede the former IAS officer has his strengths. According to party insiders, Pandian enjoys tremendous goodwill among the 70-lakh-strong women SHGs under Mission Shakti. Pandian’s roadshows also attract a sizable crowd of youth and student leaders affiliated to the BJD. Pandian has also attempted to reach out to rural voters by touring the 147 Assembly constituencies at least thrice over the last year.
But Pandian’s rapid rise and his positioning as the only link between the party and Patnaik has ruffled feathers in the BJD too.
Pandian at election meeting (Express photo)
“Who says Pandian will be the successor? His role is to see that Naveen babu’s decisions are implemented. Nothing more than that,” says an office bearer of the BJD. Another said the matter of succession will come up in the party once the elections are over.
Pandian knows only too well that his survival in the party depends on Patnaik being around and that the knives will be out if the party fares poorly.
It’s exigencies such as these, sources in the party say, that led to Pandian taking the initiative to forge an alliance with the BJP. Sources in the BJD say the failure of the talks is said to have irked Patnaik who “expressed his displeasure” in one of the rare meetings of the party held at his official residence.
With Patnaik’s failing health an open secret, the Opposition’s allegation of him being the CM in absentia has begun to stick.
“Naveen babu is old now. He has done his bit. But in Odisha, everything is daan (donation or freebies). Youngsters are becoming lazy,” says Jitendra Kumar Behra, a cab driver in Sambalpur.
Padmalochan Meher, a shopkeeper in the town, says, “Odias are still not in a mood to change Patnaik. But a change will happen eventually.”
BJP’s Dharmendra Pradhan at election meeting (Express photo)
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told The Indian Express, “Where is Naveen Patnaik? He is only in videos… The chief secretary and the DGP have probably not met the Chief Minister in a year. Neither are the secretaries or the ministers allowed to meet the CM. How is the state run?”
For BJP, a lost chance?
An ageing Patnaik, a sense of fatigue over the BJD’s long reign and the disquiet over Pandian’s elevation in the party — if the BJP had to strike, it had to do so now. Yet, as even those within the BJP admit, the party may have squandered its “golden chance” to strengthen its base and expand its electoral strength. The party had its surest foot in the door in Odisha, yet, this time, too, like earlier, it’s unlikely to walk right through.
BJP leaders blame the ennui on the confusion in the party over its relationship with the BJD. “There was always an ambiguity in the party’s approach to the BJD. The central leadership did not give a clear signal that we had to go all out against Naveen Patnaik,” said a BJP leader from the state.
On March 22, after the BJP’s Odisha unit announced that the party would go it alone in the elections, celebrations by BJP workers broke out across the state. But by then, the party had already wasted much time.
“The celebrations showed that workers on the ground were enthusiastic about fighting the incumbent BJD government in Odisha, something our central leadership failed to see in the past five years. Had the party taken a call on the alliance earlier, the situation would have been different now. The BJP lost a golden opportunity in Odisha,” says a senior BJP leader, adding, “The PM’s popularity and rhetoric alone cannot win you elections – that was proven during the 2014 and 2019 elections.” (In 2014, despite the Modi wave, the BJD won 20 of the total 21 Lok Sabha seats; BJP won just one. In 2019, the BJP increased its tally to eight but still fell short of the BJD’s 12 seats.)
After being in alliance for nine years, in 2009, the BJD and its junior ally, the BJP, parted ways over a range of issues, including an unsuccessful seat sharing formula in the elections that year.
The BJP sensed a strong undercurrent in its favour in the 2017 panchayat polls, when it won 297 of the total 846 zilla parishad seats, a sharp jump from the 36 seats it won in the 2012 polls. The BJP also replaced the Congress as the main Opposition in the Assembly, winning 23 seats. The party also steadily improved its vote share — from 15.1% and six Assembly seats in 2009 to 18.2% and 10 seats in 2014 and 32.8% and 23 seats in 2019. The party is expected to further improve its vote share this election, though it may not be adequate to dislodge the BJD from power in the state.
The BJP’s rise, though, has been at the expense of the Congress while the BJD continued to increase its vote share — from 38.9% in 2009 to 45.2% in the 2019 Assembly polls.
Despite not being allies, the two parties continued to project the “good rapport” shared by the top leadership.
The camaraderie between Modi and Patnaik during the second term of the NDA government at the Centre led to the 2019 appointment of the mild-mannered Pradipta Naik as Leader of Opposition, a decision that went against the choice of the majority of the MLAs who preferred Jaya Narayan Mishra, known to be a hardliner and a vocal critic of the BJD and Patnaik.
Though Mishra replaced Naik in July 2022, the central leadership of both parties continued to send mixed signals. Until his recent visits, PM Modi had not held a single political rally from 2019 to 2024. In February 2022, speaking in Parliament, the PM praised the Odisha government for undertaking reforms in the mining sector.
During Amit Shah’s visit to Odisha in August 2023, the Union Home Minister praised Patnaik and met Pandian at a city hotel. The meeting with Pandian, at a time when the BJP had started questioning the IAS officer’s growing influence in the state, had left the state leadership red-faced.
The BJD returned the favour and, despite not being a part of the NDA, Patnaik’s MPs in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha extended their support to the BJP on crucial occasions, including the 2022 presidential election of Droupadi Murmu, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the abrogation of Article 370.
Many say this ambiguity in the ties may have led to the state BJP becoming “lacklustre” and “timid”. They point to the 2022 panchayat polls, which the BJD swept while the BJP’s performance dropped to 42 out of 852 seats. The only silver lining for the party was that it managed to secure a vote share of 30.07% (close to its 2019 Assembly poll percentage).
Though the BJP is now going all out against the Patnaik dispensation, with PM Modi himself leading the charge, party leaders admit they have not been able to project a convincing leadership alternative for the state. However, what gives the BJP hope is that the BJD doesn’t have an alternative to Patnaik either.
Party leaders believe a call for paribartan (change), feeble as it may now be, has the prospect of growing stronger, even if Patnaik returns to power in the state for now. And if he does – which BJD leaders insist he will, even if with a lower tally – Patnaik will earn the honour of being the longest serving chief minister in the country.
