Deciphering Naveen Patnaik: What is Odisha CM's political grammar?

The Odisha CM was once seen as the quintessential outsider, partly because of his struggle with the Odia language. Now he stands on the cusp of history

In April 2019, in the run-up to the elections to Odisha’s 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President Amit Shah likened the Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government to a “burnt transformer”. A couple of weeks later, addressing a public meeting at Kendrapara, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the Odia people to accord a befitting farewell to their Chief Minister.
 

Patnaik met the BJP’s onslaught with an equanimous question to the state’s electorate, “Apana mane khushi ta (are you happy)?” In response, they elected a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government with him at its helm, for a fifth successive term.

Five years later, 78-year-old Naveen is on the cusp of creating history. He must win the forthcoming Assembly polls to become India’s longest-serving chief minister, a record held by Sikkim’s Pawan Kumar Chamling. He will complete 24 years as Odisha’s CM on March 5, also the birth anniversary of his father, Biju Patnaik.
 

This year, BJD leaders anticipate the Centre might finally heed Naveen’s demand to confer the Bharat Ratna on his father. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the Press Trust of India, is likely to visit Odisha on March 5.
 

The Odisha government in recent weeks has loosened its purse strings to beat anti-incumbency, especially courting the youth and women. V Karthikeyan Pandian, who quit the Indian Administrative Service to join the BJD in October and is being seen by some as Patnaik’s successor, said at an official event last week: “The best is yet to come.”
 

Friends and foes
 

The leadership of the other two political forces in the state — the BJP, the principal opposition party, and the Congress — seem to be abetting Naveen’s tryst with destiny.
 

“Given Naveen Patnaik’s enduring popularity among the people of the state, they would struggle to do any better,” says veteran Bhubaneswar-based journalist Prafulla Das, pointing to the CM’s social welfare schemes and dedicated support among women.

 

On February 3, at the Indian Institute of Management-Sambalpur, the PM described Patnaik as his good friend. Addressing a BJP rally later that day, he criticised neither the CM nor the BJD government, training his guns, instead, on the Congress.
 

On February 14, Patnaik said the BJD would support Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s Rajya Sabha candidature for the “larger interest” of the state’s telecom sector and railways. Vaishnaw’s first RS stint in June 2019 was also courtesy of the BJD. 
 

On February 6, as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered the state, the Congress leader alleged a “partnership” between the BJD and BJP. However, when the Yatra spent barely three days in Odisha, that too only in the tribal areas, some Congress leaders were left frustrated, some enough to switch to the BJD.
 

Naveen’s language
 

Patnaik plunged into politics after his father passed away in April 1997 and his siblings, author Gita Mehta and businessman Prem Patnaik, refused to take the mantle. He won the May 1997 Aksa Lok Sabha bypoll as the Janata Dal candidate. By the end of the year, he founded the BJD.
 

The BJD-BJP alliance won most of Odisha’s 21 Lok Sabha seats in 1998 and 1999. Ever since, from panchayat to parliamentary election, the BJD has won it all, although Naveen is still uncomfortable with the Odia language, which some find incongruous, since Odisha was the first state in India carved out on a linguistic basis, in 1936.
 

Yet, Patnaik has come to symbolise Odia pride, persuading the UPA 2 government to grant it the status of a classical language, changing the state’s name from Orissa to Odisha, and organising the first “World Odia language Conference” in the first week of February this year.
 

When Patnaik took over, Odisha was recovering from the super cyclone of October 1999, which killed 10,000 people. Earlier that year, Hindu zealot Dara Singh had killed Graham Staines and his young children in Thakurmunda. “For the people of Odisha, at that juncture, Naveen Patnaik was a godsend,” Prafulla Das says.
 

At that time, Patnaik, around 50 years old, had written three books, was part of Delhi’s social elite, hosted Robert De Niro and Mick Jagger, and played a bit part in Merchant Ivory’s 1988 movie, The Deceivers. But, when he landed in Odisha, Patnaik quickly grasped that his politics, and the birth of the BJD, needed to be on the foundation of anti-Congressism. He cut himself off the Delhi social circuit, started to dress in white kurta-pyjama, accessorised by rubber slippers, and, at least until 2008, travelled in a beaten down Maruti Esteem.
 

“It helped that he had no family or children, and even his lack of Odia endeared him to the state’s people,” Das says.
 

His own man
 

Over the years, Naveen has outmanoeuvred potential rivals, such as Bijoy Mahapatra, Nalinikanta Mohanty, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, and Baijayant Panda, in a manner few expected of him. He cracked down on corruption, sacking at least 46 ministers, jailing dozens of officials, and making it a habit to drop sitting legislators.
 

In 2001, the BJD government launched the Mission Shakti scheme to empower women through self-help groups, and there are currently 600,000 SHGs in the state covering seven million women. The Centre launched its version of Mission Shakti in 2022.

In its nearly quarter-century rule, the BJD government has promoted hockey and tourism in the state, turned a food-deficit state into a food-surplus one, and lifted millions out of poverty. According to the NITI Aayog’s National Multidimensional Poverty Index, Odisha was one of the five states to witness the steepest decline in poverty in recent years. In 2023, the government conducted a caste survey to identify the population of the Other Backward Classes.
 

In 2014, the BJD survived the “Modi tsunami”, winning 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 117 Assembly seats.
 

Naveen’s opponents have slammed him for running the government from the “third floor” of the secretariat, a euphemism for his reliance on the bureaucracy. But the government has also been praised for ensuring only 21 lives were lost during Cyclone Phailin in 2013, whose intensity was as strong as that of the 1999 super cyclone.
 

Since 2019, the BJD has supported the government on demonetisation, Article 370 and even the Citizenship Amendment Act, but objected to the three farm laws and the National Register of Citizens. The BJD was a key supporter of Droupadi Murmu’s presidential candidature. The Odisha government refused to roll out the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme.

Pandian says the state government’s Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana was “more advanced”. In 2022, Naveen stood by Missionaries of Charity, when the Centre didn’t renew its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act registration and directed the administration to use the state exchequer’s funds to provide food, medical aid, and other services to its homes.
 

Has he taken a “right” turn with the Jagannath Puri temple corridor’s inauguration on January 17, five days before the pran pratishtha in Ayodhya? According to Pandian, the chief minister respects all faiths but does not allow any to interfere with the government’s decisions.
 

We will soon see how much faith the electorate continue to have in him, for the Chief Minister might soon ask them once again: “Apana mane khushi ta?”. In Odia.