BJD supremo and five-time Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has always surprised the Opposition in successive elections and his silence leaves the Opposition guessing about the reasons behind his success. Some imagine it to be the luck factor while others assume it to be the effect of Biju-legacy or the Opposition’s weakness or freebies. Now the Chief Minister has been continuously sending his Private Secretary cum 5T Secretary VK Pandian to visit districts and listen to the developmental grievances of the people and apprise him based on which he has been sanctioning various development projects.
Though the Opposition has been criticising such visits of Pandian, who is well within his bureaucratic limits, they are clueless about the strategy of the Chief Minister. On the other hand, the BJD leaders are happy as the positive public response during such non-political meetings shows the sign of increased popularity of their leader Naveen Patnaik which shall ultimately help them in elections.
One thing is clear that the maverick and Chanakya BJD supremo understands the mind of the people and constantly updates his political strategy. By sending his Secretary to field, Patnaik is surely building his emotional connectivity with the people who vote for the BJD in his name. But one more thing is happening in the ground. The Chief Minister and BJD supremo is also responding to the local –pride and local aspirations by sanctioning local projects which could be called as local-identity politics.
The BJD originated and grew neither as a caste nor as a religion- identity party but as a party to promote Odia-identity. The second phase of this first- generation identity politics was the expansion of the party to all regions of the State.
Programmes like World Hockey Cups, Sree Jagannath Temple Corridor, Maa Samaleswari temple beautification and so on are part of this Odia- pride fulfillment activities.
The second generation identity- politics of the BJD rests on the identity of the women which is fulfilled through 50% reservation of women in local bodies and the State Government’s flagship Mission -Shakti programme. Making Mission Shakti a separate department, giving its responsibility to an experienced Odia woman bureaucrat like Sujata R Kartikeyan, scaling up interest –free SHG loan to Rs 5 lakh per group and making the women groups the stakeholders in development programmes show the commitment of Chief Minister Patnaik to fulfill the socio-economic and political aspirations of women of the State.
Further at political level, the BJD supremo leads the national campaign on women reservation bill and promises party-level accommodation to women in various posts.
Now the BJD supremo has entered into the third-generation identity-politics, the local identity-politics, which is new and the most modern political move in the country.
There is not only national or State-identity of the people but also the district or local identity ones which they boast of on local development and cultural indicators.
What is identity politics ? In his research work displayed in Oxford Bibliography titled as Identity Politics - Anthropology, researcher Vasiliki Neofotistos defines identity politics as a phrase that is widely used in the social sciences to describe the deployment of the category of identity as a tool to frame political claims, promote political ideologies or stimulate and orientate social and political action, usually in a larger context of “inequality” or “injustice” and with the aim of asserting group distinctiveness and belonging and gaining power and recognition.
Congress continued in power working on the identity politics of the newly independent people. Though the Left parties and the socialists built their political philosophy on the identity politics of the poor and the socially deprived, but they could not appeal to the masses and failed. Parties like the DMK sustained as they built political narrative on Tamil-identiy. The split-away groups of Congress like the TMC, NCP, YSRC, BRS are responding to the identify politics of their respective States. The emergence of SC and OBC caste-based parties in the north-India responded well to the identity politics of the socially weaker castes. BJP has been winning polls, working on the identity politics of the Hindus and post-independent neo- nationalism.
American psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that human decision-making is undergirded by a hierarchy of psychological needs. Maslow proposed that five core needs form the basis for human behavioral motivation. Those needs are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs, all in ascending order.
When Naveen Patnaik took over as the Chief Minister of Odisha in 2000, the physiological and safety needs of the people of Odisha were paramount. Patnaik solved those through various welfare and development measures. The State Government with its surplus budget has been spending massively on education and healthcare which are catering to physiological and safety needs of people and has direct bearing on reduction of MPI( Multi-dimensional Povery Index).
By 2014, the self-esteem and self-actualisation needs of the people of Odisha were emerging as their primary-needs were fulfilled to a large extent. Because the BJD could not respond to those needs, the Modi-wave could penetrate and increased the vote-share of the BJP in 2019 election though the BJD could save its historic lead in terms of Assembly and Lok Sabha seats. The BJD Supremo and the Chief Minister is responding to these needs now which are State as well local identity-needs. The equidistant theory of Patnaik puts him as the top-most credible political leader who is solely interested in fulfillment of all needs of the Odisha people.
While the Chief Minister’s 5-T and Mo Sarkar governance reforms have activated the administration, the BJD supremo’s organisation reforms led by the creation of a full-time organisational secretary post and assigning the job to a young and experienced MLA and former Minister Pranab Prakash Das has given historic result to the party in last local body polls. Now the party has also appointed experienced Lok Sabha observers like Manas Mangaraj before the poll. In this context, Opposition’s poll strategy ahead of the 2024 polls against the BJD remains to be seen.