V Karthikeyan Pandian: From bureaucrat to Cabinet minister in 24 hours

Retired bureaucrats have, in recent times, played an important role in the state's politics

On Tuesday, V Karthikeyan Pandian joined the growing list of former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers of its Odisha cadre who have emerged as crucial players in the coastal state's politics. Others on the list are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha member Aparajita Sarangi, and former Odisha chief secretary and Congress party's Odisha campaign committee chief Bijay Patnaik. Another former Odisha cadre IAS officer, Ashwini Vaishnaw, is the country's railways, communications, electronics and information technology minister.
 

On Tuesday morning, hours after the Centre approved his application for voluntary retirement from the IAS on Monday night, the Odisha government appointed Pandian as chairman of the government's 5T (Transformational Initiatives) with the rank of Cabinet minister, where he will work directly under the chief minister. The 49-year-old will also be in charge of the state government's new scheme – 'Ama Odisha, Nabin Odisha' (Our Odisha, New Odisha), an initiative formulated by Pandian.
 

The Centre approved Pandian's application for voluntary retirement within three days of him filing it on October 20. That the Centre quickly accepted his resignation from the service and the state government gave him a Cabinet rank within hours has triggered speculation that a political future beckons Pandian. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) sources said Pandian could soon join the party. The Assembly elections in Odisha are scheduled in April-May 2024, and will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. The Centre's eagerness to approve Pandian's resignation was reminiscent of the BJP-BJD synergy in sending Vaishnaw to the Rajya Sabha in 2019. 
 

Retired bureaucrats have, in the recent past, played a crucial role in the state's politics. Pyarimohan Mohapatra, a 1963 batch IAS officer, was critical to the success of Naveen Patnaik's initial years as the chief minister as Patnaik was a political novice when first elected to the post in 2000. Mohapatra, who retired from the IAS in 1998, was the principal secretary and a close confidant to Naveen's father, Biju Patnaik, when the latter was the chief minister. Mohapatra, described as the 'Chanakya' of Odisha politics, became an “extra-constitutional power centre” and plotted the failed '29 May coup' in 2012 against Naveen.

The CM had smelled trouble while Mohapatra hatched the plot and had started looking for a non-Odia officer to help him run the day-to-day administration. The Tamil Nadu-born Pandian filled Mohapatra's shoes. Naveen had noted his work as the district collector of Ganjam, the CM's home district — especially the efficient implementation of the rural employment guarantee scheme that reduced labour migration from the area, and promotion of folk arts. According to a Bhubaneswar-based senior journalist, Patnaik, the chief minister, is known as an "absentee landlord" who needs bureaucrats, like Pandian, to run his government.
 

"However, Pandian and his wife could achieve what Mohapatra couldn't — a transition from managing the backroom to emerging as the CM's political heirs," the senior journalist, who didn't want to be named, said. Naveen Patnaik is 77 and ailing. Pandian's wife, Sujata Rout Karthikeyan, also of the 2000 IAS batch, heads the newly created Mission Shakti department of the state government, which supports more than seven million women organised under 600,000 women’s self-help groups, a crucial support base of Naveen and his party, making the couple essential to the political fortunes of the BJD.