Odisha: ‘Hero in Lies, Zero in Work’, Naveen’s Scathing Attack on BJP, Calls SIR a ‘Conundrum’

After 24 years of political subjugation, Odisha’s former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has virtually joined the league of the opposition INDIA bloc by taking the bull (BJP) by the horn.

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo has not only used strong terms against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its “all-round failures” but has taken bitter digs over the ongoing ‘vote chori’ (vote theft) issue questioning the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the first time.

Patnaik, after a prolonged gap due to health issues and a self-induced vacation from active politics after the 2024 poll debacle, expressed his angst at the BJP while campaigning for a bypoll in the Nuapada Assembly constituency in the past two days.

Patnaik’s recent stance might have surprised BJP, for whom Patnaik has earned the sobriquet of being Narendra ‘Modi’s flatterer’ in Odisha politics for the past two-and-half decades. The BJD and BJP had been allies for almost over a decade before that.

 “Hero in lies, zero in work” was the recent term Patnaik used to condemn BJP in Odisha “which, by implication, was a cloaked swipe at the BJP Central leadership under Modi that has found itself in a quagmire of false poll promises and for the voter list ‘manipulation’ through the SIR (special intensive revision of electoral rolls) in Bihar”, said Rabi Das, a political analyst.

Speaking at election rallies at Taraboda and Dhanamundi Padia in Komna block of Nuapada district, Patnaik criticised the ruling BJP for being immersed in false propaganda. He launched a no- holds barred attack on BJP calling it a ‘no game changer but colour changer’, an indirect salvo at party here for painting every space in the state in saffron colour.

While urging the people to vote for the BJD candidate Snehangini Chhuria for the Nuapada Assembly bypoll, Patnaik lamented how under the BJP dispensation, the latter had tried to underplay the signature features of development in Nuapada and Odisha as a whole during the BJD regime in the state.

Patnaik was further acerbic and said that “the people of Nuapada, the BJD, and I have been betrayed. The people are angry and will give a fitting reply through their votes.”  

Be it the bypolls in Nuapada or the general elections of 2024 or even before that, Patnaik had hardly used such terms like ‘beiman’ (dishonest) for BJP in general and more so for Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s rule in Odisha.

“Patnaik, now 79, knows that he has nothing more to lose at this juncture politically”, commented Ritik Parmanik, a political commentator, adding that, “perhaps he is playing his last innings in Odisha politics and playing the slug overs”.

Patnaik even chose innuendoes for the first time like ‘vote chori and candidates stolen’ that negates the spirit of democratic nuances. “That was a salvo from the BJD supremo obviously aimed at the BJP central leadership in general and the Prime Minister in particular over the SIR conundrum” said Parmanik.

In fact, since the campaign led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on ‘vote chori’ and several manipulations to deprive the common voters from their rights to vote, the BJD has maintained a quizzical silence.

Anyway, better late than never. The BJD supremo has at last thrown his hat into the ring to associate himself with the INDIA bloc, observed political analysts.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha with over 40 years’ experience in the profession. The views are personal.