Five-time chief minister Naveen Patnaik took oath in the 17th Odisha assembly on Tuesday but this time as another MLA. The 78-year-old leader had a smile for the people who had gathered to greet him when he arrived, again without the ubiquitous former bureaucrat and Biju Janata Dal leader VK Pandian at the assembly premises. Eight-time MLA, the most senior in the Odisha assembly Ranendra Pratap Swain acted as the pro-tem speaker and administered oath to all members. Bharatiya Janata Party Keonjhar MLA and chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi, as well as deputy CMs KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida and all the other MLAs also took oath.
In his sixth innings as an MLA, Patnaik is expected to play the role of the leader of the opposition. The BJD has 51 seats, the CPI(M) has one, independent candidates bagged three, while the BJP scored a historic victory crossing the majority mark with 78 seats in the recent elections.
After taking oath, Patnaik who had an uninterrupted rule of a staggering twenty-four years in Odisha, greeted all the newly elected members. He, in fact, walked up to the treasury benches and greeted Odisha’s new and 17th chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi, and his two deputies. But before that, the BJP’s Kantabanji MLA Laxman Bag stood up to greet Patnaik and introduce himself. Bag handed Patnaik his first-ever defeat in his electoral career. However, in keeping with the true spirit of democracy, Patnaik also greeted Bag with, “Oh, you defeated me,” and chatted with him for a couple of minutes.
Political circles have been rife with speculation about the successor of Naveen Patnaik, as he is single. The Biju Janata Dal has grown to be a strong regional force with Patnaik at the helm of affairs. In fact, the drubbing that the BJD got in the recent elections has been unanimously attributed to the very visible role that former bureaucrat and BJD leader Pandian assumed in the campaign, almost eclipsing even the five-time chief minister and thus lending weight to rivals’ charge that the Tamilian would take over should the BJD win.
It is in this context that the former chief minister’s nephew Arun Patnaik assumes significance. The younger Patnaik is the son of the former Odisha chief minister’s elder brother Prem Patnaik and the grandson of the late chief minister Biju Patnaik. Arun Patnaik, whose occasional visits to Odisha have always sparked questions of whether he would succeed Naveen Patnaik, also got married on this day in Amsterdam to Nadia, a person from the Netherlands. The news was broken on Instagram by his sister Gayatri Patnaik, currently a director at Beacon Press, who posted pictures and videos of the wedding including one of the couple Arun and Nadia, and said, “There is no joy like a sibling getting married.” Prem Patnaik, Naveen’s elder brother and an industrialist based in Delhi, was also present at the wedding. After the loss of Naveen Patnaik’s sister Gita Mehta last year, the marriage is a happy occasion for the family which prides itself on its privacy.
A day after the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD was defeated by the BJP, Arun Patnaik visited the outgoing chief minister in Bhubaneswar, sparking speculation about whether he would be anointed as the successor. This was after Patnaik had made it clear that VK Pandian was not his successor. “It has also come to my notice that there is some criticism of Mr Pandian. This is unfortunate. As an officer, he did excellent work in many fields in the last ten years, helping with the two cyclones and with the Covid-19 epidemic in our state. After this good work, he retired from the bureaucracy and joined my party. And has contributed largely to that by doing excellent work. He is a person of integrity and honesty and should be remembered for all that,” Patnaik said. “Mr Pandian joined the party, has not held any post, as you know he did not fight in these elections from any constituency and I have always clearly said when they ask me about my successor, I have said clearly that it is not Mr Pandian and I repeat it again that the people of Odisha will decide my successor.”
Patnaik has won many hearts with the stoicism and grace he has shown after defeat. In fact, when he walked up the stage during the oath-taking of BJP chief minister Mohan Majhi, the audience which was there to support the BJP’s new government, welcomed him with thunderous applause. As he said, “I would like to repeat again my deep gratitude to the people of my state of Odisha for blessing me time and time again, showering me with their blessings and permitting me to serve them. Also, I think that we have always tried to do an excellent job and we have much to be proud of in our government and in our party.”
Patnaik gracefully accepted defeat. “That is in the people’s hands. In a democracy, you know you either win or you lose. So, having been defeated after a long time, we must always take the verdict of the people gracefully. I have always said that the four and a half crore people of Odisha are my family and I will continue to serve them in whichever way I can,” he said.
With the marriage of Arun Patnaik to a person from the Netherlands, it is increasingly less likely that he would prefer to pursue a political career in Odisha. Having been brought up outside Odisha, the marriage may distance him further from his Odia roots. The question of who will be Naveen Patnaik’s successor is still wide open.
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