Naveen Patnaik has set a record by winning a fifth consecutive term as chief minister of Odisha. His party, the Biju Janata Dal, won 110 0f 147 seats in the assembly elections. The BJP finished a distant second with 22 seats. In the Lok Sabha polls, however, the BJP gave the BJD a tough fight, winning 8 of 21 seats. The BJD won 12, riding on Naveen’s charisma and the popularity of the welfare measures introduced by his government.
The 73-year-old bachelor has been an accidental politician. His father, Biju Patnaik, twice chief minister of Odisha, never encouraged dynastic politics. Naveen took the plunge after his father’s death in 1997. In alliance with the BJP, the BJD did exceptionally well in the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections. Naveen led the coalition to victory in the 2000 assembly elections and has remained in the chief minister’s seat since then. He broke off the alliance ahead of the elections in 2009, blaming the sangh parivar for the 2008 Kandhamal riots. The BJD swept both the Lok Sabha and the assembly elections, becoming the first regional party to form a government on its own in Odisha. Naveen stood tall even when the Narendra Modi wave swept the country in 2014. The BJD won 20 Lok Sabha seats and 117 seats in the assembly.
Naveen, however, could not repeat the performance this time. While he won the assembly polls convincingly, the BJP gave the BJD a scare in the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP has been in campaign mode in the state since 2014. Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan was given the charge of the party in Odisha. In the local body polls held in February 2017, the BJP displaced the Congress as the principal opposition force in the state. It even managed to eat into the BJD’s vote bank.
It was an upbeat BJP which took on the BJD in the latest round of elections. Pradhan coordinated the campaign, although he did not contest. Modi addressed eight public meetings, including a roadshow in Bhubaneswar. The BJP’s aggressive poll pitch forced Naveen to contest from two assembly constituencies.
Apart from his sitting seat of Hinjili, in south Odisha’s Ganjam district, Naveen also contested from Bijepur in western Odisha. He won both. Naveen chose Bijepur to counter the BJP’s dominance in western Odisha and to correct the impression that the BJD was mainly a coastal Odisha party. To ward off anti-incumbency, he replaced 16 MPs and 49 MLAs. He also allotted one-third of the seats to women.
The BJD campaign depended solely on Naveen’s charisma. Dismissing rumours about his health, he crisscrossed the state in a custom-made bus, attending a series of roadshows. Naveen’s key campaign plank was the neglect of Odisha by the Union government and the demand for special category status for the state. He also highlighted the social welfare measures implemented by his government, including the subsidised rice scheme and the farmer support scheme. The election season also saw Modi and Naveen taking on each other publicly. In one of his rallies, Modi said, “Naveen babu, you are going out of power.” Naveen responded by inviting Modi to his swearing-in ceremony.
While most voters wanted Naveen to continue as chief minister, Modi was the preferred choice as prime minister for many of them. The final results have given both leaders and their supporters something to cheer about.
