When the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was formed on December 26, 1997 and Naveen Patnaik became its president, very few politicians would have imagined that the new regional party could transform itself in a short time to become the “political identity” of the people of Odisha integrating the inhabitants of various regions, castes, religion and languages. Never losing power since its inception, the BJD is celebrating its 24th foundation day today, leaving behind visible footprints of a role model regional party for the next-generation politicians.
It is not that the State did not witness the phenomenon of regional party before. In fact, Odisha was the fertile ground for regional parties during the post-Independence era.
Three such major parties had some degrees of political success during the 1951-77 period such as the Ganatantra Parishad led by RN Singh Deo, the Jana Congress led by Dr Harekrushna Mahtab and the Utkal Congress led by Biju Patnaik.
The latter two parties were breakaways of the Congress. These parties were surviving on anti-Congress narratives. The anti-Emergency JP movement against the Congress and the emergence of the national Janata Party in the 1977 elections ended the regional party era in Odisha mobilising the people towards the national parties again.
The flow towards the national parties continued till 1997, during which the people’s choice were divided between the two national parties, the Congress and the Janata Parivar. The 1977-1997 era witnessed two leaders heading the two opposite national party camps in Odisha -- Biju Patnaik leading the anti-Congress group and JB Patnaik leading the Congress.
The death of Biju Patnaik in 1997 created a vacuum in the anti-Congress camp. Naveen Patnaik contested a by-election from the vacant Aska Lok Sabha seat of Bijubabu as the Janata Dal (JD) candidate and won, defeating the State’s ruling Congress’ nominee. This built confidence in the then Janata Dal camp to float the BJD under Naveen Patnaik’s leadership. Most of the JD leaders joined the BJD and the anti-Congress vacuum was filled up by Naveen Patnaik successfully.
The turn of events pitched the novice Naveen Patnaik against the heavyweight Congress leader JB Patnaik and the people stood firmly with Naveen Patnaik. Like Bijubabu, Naveen soon became the anti-Congress political face. His personality traits like simple life, decent behaviour and unmarried status resulted in building people’s trust in him.
The BJP found it wise to build alliance with the BJD to build its base in Odisha though it had no successful State leadership. The alliance under Naveen’s leadership got success in the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections and Naveen became a Union Minister. The non-performance of the Congress Government and the performance of Naveen as a Union Minister during the 1999 Supper Cyclone had increased people’s confidence in Naveen
The first acid test for the BJD and Naveen came in 2000 when the BJD-BJP alliance fought the Assembly elections under Naveen’s leadership. The alliance won and Naveen became Chief Minister.
He became the State’s second regional party CM, the first being RN Singh Deo (March 1967-January1971). The 2004 elections were a repeat of the 2000 BJD-BJP alliance and Naveen became the CM for the second term.
The 2009 election was a different situation. The BJD took a departure from the BJP and contested the polls allying with the Left and the NCP. The BJD was successful again in defeating the Congress and the BJP and Naveen became the CM for the third term. Later, the NCP MLAs joined the BJD.
The 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections were the situations where the BJD fought against the national parties, the BJP and the Congress and won both the polls singlehandedly. Naveen became the CM for the fourth and fifth terms.
When there was an all-India BJP wave in 2019, Odisha people gave the Assembly mandate to the BJD in a simultaneously-conducted LS and Assembly polls. The success of Naveen’s leadership as a regional party chief was highlighted by none other than PM Modi himself during a Parliament discussion on simultaneous elections. Not that there was no new regional parties formed during 2000-2020. Prominent leaders like Bijay Mohaptra, Soumya Patnaik, Braja Kishore Tripathy and Kharavela Swain floated regional parties but did not succeed.
Similarly, there were many movements against the Naveen Government ranging from anti-corporate movements to anti-corruption, famers, chit fund victim movements, but the popularity of Naveen remained intact. Similarly, dissidents in the BJD could not succeed and Naveen’s action against them got people’s support. The vote share of the BJD continued to grow in each election.
How it happened? The BJD is not a regional party based on caste or religion or aggressive regionalism or language unlike many other regional outfits. It is a party catering to all social groups, especially for the poor and the marginal groups and women. This ideology of welfare-inclusive-development has brought success to the BJD.
While the earlier regional parties were using anti-Congress political narratives, the BJD took an anti-Centre stance and used a BJP-Congress-equidistance narrative. Though this positioning brought loss to the BJD due to its non-participation in the Union Ministry but it instilled regional sentiment and integrated the people of the State.
Interestingly, after providing welfare, Naveen moved to the higher domain of achieving “happiness” of the people by coining the popular 2019 election slogan “Apanamane Khusi Ta (Are you all happy)”, something completely new to India, and achieved further success.