NEW DELHI: The collapse of Biju Janta Dal in Odisha, after the results of assembly elections were declared alongside Lok Sabha elections, is being attributed to the chief minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik’s handing over of the “party reins” to bureaucrats in the state. Such handover of power resulted in taking its Lok Sabha seat tally to zero from 12 seats in 2019.
Moreover, the important factor in the collapse of BJD is also seen to be the “disconnect” of Patnaik with his leaders as well as with the populace. There were only four important persons, according to party insiders, in Odisha and they were considered politically close to Naveen Patnaik. Apart from the popular V. K Pandian (IAS), who was appointed as Chairman 5T (Transformational Initiatives) with the rank of a Cabinet Minister last year, Ashish Singh (IGP), BS Kutte (OSD to CM) and General Secretary BJD organisation Pranav Prakash Das were the CM’s only associates to be allowed to enter the chief minister’s house. According to a party insider, “Patnaik was too much dependent on officials rather than BJP cadre and this bias capsized his political ship.”
Interestingly, Ashish Singh and DS Kutte (both government officials) were sent notice by Election Commission of India (ECI) before the elections as they had been personally involved in the party’s campaigning processes. As talks in political circles has it, they had done so by taking medical leave from government duties and joined political venture unlawfully. A party insider said, “This is surprising as well as shocking. The kind of hubris these people would be in was shown by confidently taking leave from government office and at the same time managing political activities. Now Kutte has already been suspended and Singh is going through medical checkup. The results however were supposed to be made public. But it hasn’t come out yet.”
Recalling an incident, a BJD leader said, there was once a rumour being spread which travelled far and wide. It came up once that the chief minister is non-functional and some actually believed it. Because of the exceptional privacy the chief minister maintained.
A BJD leader said, “Naveen Patnaik had stopped meeting anyone. Every transfer in the state or any important issuance of tenders or any important move of ministries had to be routed through Pandian. He had become the super CM, which demoralised most of the politicians in the party. Career politicians do not like parachute players coming down upon them with greater power. They dislike it and lose enthusiasm. That is the reason the party could not mobilise its forces the way it was expected to.”
The politicians, according to political observers, who have worked their way up from the ground in a political organisation and who have been involved in public dealings understand the pulse of people and are therefore skilled in amassing votes and winning elections.
However, such an ecosystem within the BJD was fading bringing the party down with a thud. Thus, apart from losing his Chief Minister chair of 24 years, the BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik also lost the Kantabanji Assembly seat (which was the second seat he contested from) that he contested from. In addition to that he retained his bastion of Hinjili only by a narrow margin of 4,386 votes. In addition to that, the party had won 112 assembly seats out of 147 in 2019 which came down to 51 in the recently concluded elections of 2024, routing the party from power after 24 years.