Can Naveen Babu reconnect with the people of Odisha?

After an uninterrupted 24 years as chief minister, Naveen Patnaik has gracefully accepted his new role as leader of the opposition in the state. His party—the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)—tasted defeat for the first time in the recent assembly elections, paving the way for the formation of Odisha’s maiden BJP government. Invited to the swearing-in ceremony of his successor Mohan Charan Majhi in June, Patnaik mingled with top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with no sign of rancour, despite several below-the-belt statements made by the PM during his prolonged election campaign in Odisha. Naveen Babu exuded the same charm that made him the darling of the masses until overconfidence did him in.

The defeat at the hustings, however shocking, has not changed the former chief minister, neither his personal demeanour, his media-shyness or his way of conducting politics. His stoicism cannot hide the fact, though, that he seems to be struggling to keep his flock together. Not only on account of the BJP’s machinations but also his own reluctance to interact freely with his party leaders to understand their problems and get their feedback on important issues.

The first signs of cracks in the BJD became apparent towards the end of July when the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Mahanta put in her papers saying she was taking a “hard decision in public interest”. Within days, she joined the BJP which sent her to the Upper House of Parliament on its ticket. Two months later, Sujeet Kumar, another Rajya Sabha member, quit Odisha’s most successful regional party to enter the saffron fold. He, too, has been re-elected to the Rajya Sabha as a BJP member.

There were other signs of rupture in the BJD. Dismissed lightly by a section of the leadership, Patnaik’s loosening grip on the party that has become synonymous with him since its formation in 1997 (following the death of his father and former chief minister Biju Patnaik after whom the party is named). Closet dissidents, who had stayed mum when the party was in power, appear to have found their voice now. Former minister Amar Prasad Satpathy, who was denied a BJD ticket this time, openly blamed Patnaik for the debacle.

The noise has increased with Patnaik’s Man Friday, former IAS officer V.K. Pandian, no longer wielding the clout he once enjoyed. Patnaik is still believed to have a soft corner for Pandian who served as his private secretary for 11 years, but the Tamil Nadu-born former bureaucrat, who announced his retirement from active politics in the wake of BJD’s defeat, hardly ever visits Shankha Bhavan, the party headquarters in Bhubaneswar. With Pandian out of the picture, the task of rebuilding the BJD is almost exclusively up to Patnaik. He has made a good beginning by forming committees of senior BJD leaders to handle different tasks.

The seven Rajya Sabha members from the party have been asked to raise issues such as Odisha’s demand for special category status and the threat of submergence—caused by the ongoing Polavaram irrigation project in Andhra Pradesh—faced by several villages in Motu and Padia blocks of the tribaldominated Malkangiri district.

These issues, which had reaped rich electoral dividends in the past, were underplayed in the last election with Patnaik spending most of his time rebutting the BJP’s charges.

This does not suggest that all is over for the regional party. Patnaik stands a good chance of reviving his party’s fortunes if he can keep it together. The only way he can stop the BJP from poaching his party leaders is by inspiring confidence among them about his ability to lead them back to victory in the next elections.

At 78, Patnaik can and should leverage his impressive legacy. When he took over the reins of the state in 2000, Odisha had been battered by a supercyclone that left more than 10,000 people dead and the entire coast devastated. The coffers were depleted and joblessness was rising.

Rigorously following austerity measures dictated by the World Bank, Patnaik brought the state’s finances back on an even keel over the next five to seven years. Under his leadership, the state also developed the country’s best disaster resistance mechanism. In 2005, Odisha emerged as the favoured investment destination of the country with South Korean steel behemoth POSCO signing an MoU with the state government to set up a 12 million tonne per annum steel plant in the state at a cost of Rs 52,000 crore. (It was then the country’s biggest FDI.)

Steel major ArcelorMittal also decided to build a Rs 50,000 crore steel mill in Odisha. Though both companies later withdrew because of land acquisition problems, Odisha’s reputation as an attractive investment destination grew. Earlier known only for stories of starvation deaths and the sale of children by impoverished parents, Odisha turned into one of India’s frontline industrial states, with big steel and aluminium projects being set up in its mineral-rich districts.

In 2016, the Patnaik government launched the ‘Make in Odisha’ initiative to attract investments. The new BJP government has borrowed the idea from Patnaik and rebranded it Utkarsh Odisha; the first conclave under the new name will be held in Bhubaneswar in January 2025. Odia pride glowed a little brighter when the Naveen Patnaik government organised the first Men’s Hockey World Cup in Bhubaneswar in 2018.

The following edition of the game in 2023 was also held in Odisha, across two venues: Bhubaneswar and the steel city of Rourkela where the country’s biggest hockey stadium came up, named after tribal hero Birsa Munda. Thanks to Patnaik, Odisha is today seen as the sports capital of the country.

On 13 December, India’s latest worldclass badminton facility, designed in the shape of a shuttlecock, was jointly inaugurated by chief minister Mohan Majhi and his Assamese counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma who is also the president of the Badminton Association of India. The credit for the construction of this high performance centre, built inside the Kalinga Stadium complex in Bhubaneswar, goes to Patnaik. Almost the entire work was done during his tenure. Patnaik has much to show for his 24 years in power. But he needs to come out of his cocoon and reconnect with the people and the media. In fact, he might consider picking up a few tips on self-promotion from the BJP.

The media recently went to town about the prime minister’s continued focus on Odisha which has emerged as one of the BJP’s key states in the eastern region. On 24 November, the prime minister attended the closing ceremony of Odisha Parba 2024, an annual extravaganza that showcases Odia art and culture in Delhi.

On 29 November, he flew into Bhubaneswar to attend the three-day national conference of DGPs and IGPs, held in Odisha for the first time. Modi will be back in Bhubaneswar again on 9 January to take part in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas being hosted in the state capital also for the first time. Modi sure knows how to consolidate his party’s gains by using every possible channel.

Will Patnaik take a leaf out of his friendturned-foe’s book?