Naveen Patnaik: How the BJD leader pulled off a 23-year miracle

No matter the irony, Naveen Patnaik’s name is currently at odds with his spectacular achievements. Though Naveen in his native Odia means 'new', Patnaik has been Odisha’s chief minister for so long that an entire generation of young voters in the state has not been ruled by any other elected leader other than him.

First elected chief minister in 2000, Patnaik has been at the helm in Odisha uninterruptedly since then. In pulling off such a remarkable feat with few parallels in the topsy-turvy world of Indian electoral democracy, Patnaik has left speechless his die-hard followers and detractors alike.

Having plunged into politics following the passing of his legendary father Biju Patnaik — a former chief minister considered the state’s tallest politician — few had predicted a long political innings for the junior Patnaik. Most thought that he would, because of his famous surname and propelled by a sympathy wave after his father’s death, win an election once and be voted out the next time.

Some 23 years later, Patnaik has proven all the predictions wrong. Last week, he surpassed the record held by Jyoti Basu, who was the chief minister of West Bengal for 23 years and 138 days, thereby becoming India’s second longest-serving chief minister ever.

Also Read | BJD to fight for women's rights from village to Parliament: Naveen Patnaik

Only Sikkim’s Pawan Chamling, who had ruled the tiny hill state for 24 years and 166 days between 1994 and 2019, is ahead. Shattering that record, too, looks eminently possible, with Patnaik being everyone’s favourite to win the next Assembly elections in 2024 to further renew his seemingly endless reign.

No wonder everyone is curious to find out how Patnaik has managed to be in power for so long. What is even more striking is that he has managed to do what he has done so far without speaking in the local dialect, Odia.

Born and brought up outside the state, the Doon School-educated Patnaik is more proficient in English. Once a high-flying socialite who rubbed shoulders with such celebrities as Mick Jagger and Jacqueline Kennedy, authored several coffee-table books on the finer things in life, and even acted in a bit role in the Hollywood movie 'The Deceivers', the world for him in the first 50 years of his life was far removed from the customary dirt and din that defined Odisha.

But Patnaik, as it turned out, took to politics as readily as a duck takes to water. Behind his suave, decent, soft-spoken exterior lay a ruthless political streak that he exercised intermittently to cut down all political rivals within his Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Over time, he has come to rule Odisha and his party pretty much unchallenged.

Unusually reticent and virtually inaccessible, Patnaik has packaged himself well. A bachelor who lives alone in his sprawling home ‘Naveen Niwas’, built by his father adjacent to Bhubaneswar’s airport, he has retained much of his initial novelty, innocence and squeaky-clean image.

Though several scandals, such as the ones involving unregulated chit funds and unfettered mining of mineral resources, have periodically rocked the state during his tenure, Patnaik has craftily succeeded in staying above suspicion. When the need arose, he sacrificed ministers, sacking dozens of them to shift the blame.

As his repeated election successes — five general elections till date — have emphatically shown, Odias are overwhelmingly convinced that Patnaik has delivered a clean and effective administration, in which a few chosen career bureaucrats seem to matter more than his elected partymen.

The affairs of the state, as also that of his ruling party, are widely suspected to be run by his private secretary, V Karthikeyan Pandian. Now that Patnaik is old (he is 76) and not in perfect health, it is Pandian who is currently touring the state and interacting with the public on his behalf.

Yet, few in Odisha are losing sleep over the unusual arrangement. Though tens of thousands of Odias still go out of the state to look for work, with Odisha continuing to be the eighth poorest state in the country, Patnaik’s tenure has infused the state with a perceptible feel-good factor.

Though no big-ticket investments have happened, scattered industrialisation has kept the public mood optimistic. Keeping voters happy are also the raft of welfare schemes that his government has rolled out with unfailing regularity. Women — Patnaik’s core political constituency — are particularly happy with the six lakh-odd self-help groups that Patnaik has set up.

All this and more have helped Patnaik to avoid closer scrutiny. With little inner party democracy — his party is thought to be as undemocratic as the AIADMK was during Jayalalithaa’s heydays — he does not entertain the local media. None remember him holding a proper press conference, barring the one that he addressed way back in 2000.

Also, a crackdown inevitably follows hard critique, as was the case with a popular TV channel whose owners had 21 cases lodged against them within a span of 14 days.

Patnaik’s juggernaut therefore continues to roll unhindered in Odisha — the land of Lord Jagannath.

(Ruben Banerjee is the former Editor-in-Chief of Outlook magazine and the author of ‘Naveen Patnaik’ – an unauthorised biography of the Odisha chief minister)