Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik (Photo | Twitter)
Twenty-five years can be a long time in politics. For a political party, it can mean anything between survival and wilderness. On a political canvas as vast and diverse as India, parties do come with a shelf life of their own. Regional outfits are more susceptible to headwinds. Many have risen to the peak only to fall into oblivion thence. Many continue an unending struggle for acceptance.
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), however, stands as an aberration - an unparalleled story in the political landscape of the country. Be it the Samajwadi Party or Shiv Sena; Telugu Desam Party or Trinamool Congress, etc., there is hardly any regional outfit in India which has left such distinctive mark as BJD has. A run that started in 2000, Naveen has steered BJD through political storms and deep waters and now charted a path for others to follow.
As he steps into the 24th year of his rule in Odisha, and the party has ventured into celebrations, the BJD boss has to his credit not a single electoral loss. With each passing poll, he has only grown stronger beating every sign of anti-incumbency hands down.
Someone who began his innings after a human tragedy as monumental as the 1999 super cyclone, Naveen has made the art of fighting crisis his winning formula. From making Odisha fight fit against natural calamities to standing tall against a double Narendra Modi wave, the BJD chief has crafted a repertoire and legacy few can match in today’s politics.
Naveen had inherited a state that was in crisis in every sense of the word - lawlessness had spiralled out of control; economy was in the depths of indebtedness and there was a vast populace at the throes of poverty and despair. It did not come easy, and required constant evolution and inventiveness at every step in the governance as well as politics to turn it around.
It, of course, took uncanny political craft to pull it off. He trucked with BJP when the latter was bursting on the national political scene and was bold enough to dump it nine years later and then again faced the saffron party at its strongest point in 2014 and 2019, each time emerging on the winning side, so much so that he has managed to be their friend-in-need at the Centre while beating them at their own game in the state.
All the while he has remained committed to Odisha despite emerging as one of the most-respected political leaders in the national sphere unlike his contemporaries like Nitish Kumar, K Chandra Sekhar Rao and Mamata Banerjee who nurse national ambitions. The BJD boss has made regional politics so riveting that leaders look up to him with as much awe as with respect.
Few would remember a small incident that occurred in the middle of 2000s. A young woman - a commercial sex worker - was assaulted and pushed off a moving car in Bhubaneswar. Local police was quick to dismiss it as a ‘deal’ that had gone bad between the woman and the ‘customer.’ Within minutes of this being reported, the then DGP scrambled to his feet and addressed the media to clear the air - it was a woman who was violated and the culprits were rounded up in no time. A fuming Naveen had ensured that the woman was treated with compassion and dignity.
From that non-descript woman to today’s Sesha Kisan, a poor young man from Sambalpur who was sponsored by the Chief Minister to fulfil his dreams of being a scientist, it’s his empathy that sets Naveen apart from the rest.
Who would have thought that the high-flying socialite far far away from the dust and grime of realpolitik, forced into the field by the demise of his father the legendary Biju Patnaik, would reach talismanic heights, building an unbreachable political fortress on the way. But, that’s Naveen’s story and a glowing chapter in India’s political history.
Siba Mohanty
Resident Editor, Odisha
sibamohanty@newindianexpress.com
