Odisha: Naveen Patnaik Backpedals to the Future

It can be said that Naveen Patnaik, the former Chief Minister of Odisha and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo, seems to have reached the end of the road in politics in a way.

As political analysts would have us believe, "Patnaik himself got hung by his own petard by making rallying calls through a kind of ventriloquism enacted by someone else who at last proved to be Frankenstein's monster”.

From being a reluctant politician initially, Patnaik remained the same till the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections when he chose crutches to walk and let someone else decipher his dreams.

With the change of government in Odisha, Patnaik suffered a shocking debacle and nearly shot his own feet, although his popularity still remains intact, as the only politician among a galaxy of ‘netas’ from other political parties. But popularity didn’t pay dividends through the ballot box.

The recent incident in a police station on the outskirts of the state capital Bhubaneswar has shocked many, but the ruling party’s (the Bharatiya Janata Party now runs the state government) soft-pedalling on the issue is no less baffling.

The alleged sexual and physical harassment meted out to a couple inside the police station by the police staff sparked outrage across the state. The couple, an Army officer and his fiancé, reached the police station looking for safety after facing some harassment on their way home. However, the remedy proved to be worse than the disease. A worse kind of assault was allegedly inflicted on them in the policed station.

As of now, a probe is underway, as well as politics surrounding the incident. Patnaik rose to the occasion, terming it a “shocking incident” in the city that reflected the complete collapse of law and order and women’s safety. The BJD demanded an independent investigation instead of by the state police.

With that done, the pressure of the incident seems to have lost its sting with people hardly discussing it now.

In fact, the incident demonstrated that Patnaik’s obsession with the ‘politics of dependence’ on others has reduced him to a state of political stupor that kept him blinded to anything that takes place outside the sphere of politics.

From 2000 to 2024, over-dependence on others had led the former Chief Minister to a state of political unconsciousness, which ended up crushing his hopes for a sixth time record rule.

Also, Patnaik’s persona of a ‘clean leader’ has failed on so many occasions when politically wrong decisions began tearing apart the fabric of unity within the BJD.

From the time of his first-ever political harbinger to his most recent ‘Man Friday’ V K Pandian, Patnaik’s image in the 2024 election campaign got further eclipsed, distancing him from the people, which became a turning point in his political career of over two decades.

Now, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, BJD’s strength may not help Patnaik flatten the barbs that lie ahead.  The condition of BJP’s ‘double engine’ rule in Odisha appears extremely inert, yet Naveen Patnaik’s bandwagon chooses to confine itself to occasional press releases in and outside the Assembly.

The writer is a freelancer based in Odisha. The views are personal.