It is till now all victory and victory for BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik while his legendary father Biju Patnaik has a record of becoming leader of Opposition more times than the Chief Minister.
While Naveen has been reaping political dividends ever since he entered politics, his father had a long history of struggle. Though Biju Patnaik remained in electoral politics for more than 50 years, he could be Chief Minister only for a total period of seven years.Besides, Biju was also in power as a Union Cabinet member for about three years. So, out of his half a century of political career, he was in power for a mere 10 years!
Now, Biju’s youngest son Naveen has broken his record, and within 17 years of his political life he is ruling the State continuously for 14 years, besides being fortunate to be in AB Vajpayee’s Union Cabinet for about two years.Biju was elected to the Assembly for the first time in 1946 as a Congress candidate from the Cuttack Sadar constituency. Thereafter, he was elected to the State legislature from Jaganathprasad in 1952 and Soroda in 1957.
Being elected from Choudwar in 1961, Biju became Chief Minister for about two and a half years. In 1967, he was defeated from the Patkura constituency. In 1971, he simultaneously fought elections from record numbers of five constituencies, including then Bhanjnagar lok Sabha seat. And he lost all the five seats. The four Assembly seats he had contested were Choudwar, Bhubaneswar, Khurda and Bhanjnagar.
later, he was fortunate to return to the Assembly from Rajnagar in a by-election which was vacated by his old colleague Prahallad Mallick, who had won two seats, Patamundai and Rajnagar.In 1974, Bjiu retained his Rajnagar seat while in 1980 he was elected from Patkura. From 1985 to 1995, he was elected from the Bhubaneswar Assembly constituency.After his landslide victory in the 1990 Assembly elections by scoring an all-time record, till now, of 123 seats for his Janata Dal and became Chief Minister for full five years. However, he lost power as his Janata Dal drew only 46 seats in 1995 and he had to become leader of Opposition.Biju had become a member of the Union Cabinet headed by Morarji Desai after being elected to lok Sabha from the Kendrapada seat in 1977. In 1980 and 1984, he retained the Kendrapada lS seat.
Biju gave up the Patkura Assembly seat which he also won in 1980 and he let Bijay Mohapatra enter the Assembly in a by-election. Similarly, he left the Kendrapada lS seat in 1985 and Sarat Deb was elected to Parliament from there in a by-poll. In 1996, Biju retained his Aska Assembly seat and vacated the Bhubaneswar seat which he had also won simultaneously. In his place, BJP leader Biswabhusan Harichandan was elected from Bhubaneswar defeating his nominee.
After Biju’s demise, Naveen won the Aska lS seat in a by-election in 1997. Thereafter, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was formed under Naveen’s leadership. The BJD joined the Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Naveen became a Minister at the Centre.In 2000, the BJD-BJP alliance formed Government in the State under Naveen’s leadership. The alliance, which continued in the 2004 polls, was broken in 2009.
Biju was leader of Opposition for four times whereas Naveen is yet to be in Opposition. Beginning from 1946 up to 1996, Biju changed his constituencies frequently and dared to fight elections at a time from different constituencies. Naveen has been sticking to his Hinjili Assembly seat ever since 2000, though he had earlier contested from the Aska lS seat in a by-poll as it fell vacant after his father’s death.Before Independence and during Emergency, Biju was imprisoned, an experience Naveen does not have.