Odisha: How Naveen Patnaik Helped Design his Own and BJD’s Pitfall in Politics

The defeat of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) under Naveen Patnaik in 2024 cannot be seen in isolation.

In the past 24 years, the damage caused to the party was cyclic in a way, or rather it can be said since the days of BJD’s formation as a regional outfit in Odisha in 2000.

After BJD’s formation, Patnaik was ushered in and made the head of the party named after his late father Biju Patnaik.

The rot in the party began after Naveen Patnaik got his father’s erstwhile principal secretary, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, an IAS officer, to take the driving seat of BJD.

BJD suffered the first casualty when Pyari Mohan played his card very tacitly and refused a ticket to Bijaya Mohapatra, supposedly the founder of BJD.

Since then, the seeds of schism withing the party started taking shape but none could dare to speak up as Pyari Mohan’s writ prevailed, ostensibly mandated by Naveen Patnaik himself, who began his innings on that bitter note.

Years passed and shockingly, Pyari Mohan committed another blunder on May 29, 2014, when Naveen Patnaik was in Italy, by virtually designing a “coup” to oust him, taking some senior BJD loyalists into his fold.

Somehow, the silent coup was foiled and Naveen Patnaik came back from Italy in a huff with BJD leaders welcoming him with a bang to send a signal to Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, who was ousted from the role of Patnaik’s trusted man and advisor, once for all.

In that crucial phase, some BJD leaders, such as Damodar Rout, exhibited courage against Mohapatra and stood like a rock to foil the revolt by Pyari Mohan was building up.

That was the time when IAS V K Pandian quickly got into the shoes of Pyari Mohan, and Patnaik, by then used to walking on crutches politically, made Pandian his principal secretary and later the 5T (transformational initiatives) secretary empowering him with immense power virtually making him the most powerful officer in the bureaucratic set-up, even more powerful than the chief secretary.

Pandian slowly became Patnaik’s administrative monarch and the political architect-cum-advisor. Perhaps, the Chief Minister’s dependence on Pandian was what he wanted for his own comfort, which made Pandian an unworried entity in Odisha’s political landscape while enjoying sovereignty in the officialdom.

Soon Pandian resigned from his IAS post and joined BJD, thus becoming the uncrowned prince of the party.

Pandian then saw to it that those who had once taken swipes against him and indirectly cautioned Patnaik not to give the former unbridled supremacy, faced the axe.

Damodar Rout, a former cabinet minister, was one of those victims who fell victim and was dispatched back home. His fault was he had been critical of Pandian and his superseding authorities that annoyed many BJD leaders, some of whom were either politically isolated or were shown the door.

Many other senior leaders and former cabinet ministers, like Prafulla Ghadai, were virtually shown the exit door. By 2022, BJD was bereft of any political leaders worth the name to guide the party or suggest anything to Patnaik.

The party was simply reduced to a body that was virtually in the grip of Pandian and four other IAS and IPS officers that became a powerful coterie.

Patnaik, who had by then struggling with his health, became more and more dependent on Pandian for everything, and in 2024 his (Naveen’s) dependence on Pandian crossed all the limits when Patnaik allowed Pandian to become the sole election campaigner.

People who loved Patnaik could did not like the way Pandian conducted himself in meetings and rallies. He became an irritant for the people as well as BJD cadres.  

And as a lone campaigner, minus any other political leader on the stage and even without the then Chief Minister Patnaik more often than not, what Pandian did is already history by now.

It is said that when a ship sinks, the rodents desert it first, and that was what happened after BJD’s electoral debacle on June 4.  

Realising the message that had gone to the people on the ground, Pandian left Bhubaneswar on June 6 late night, reportedly rather clandestinely.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha. The views are personal.