Former State Congress president Niranjan Patnaik on Tuesday took on Naveen Patnaik’s claim of remaining equidistant from the BJP and the Congress, saying the BJD supremo’s stand is an opportunistic political stunt and not any value-based ideological position.
Naveen Patnaik remaining with the BJP became a Central Minister and even ran a coalition Government along with saffron party in the State from 2000 to 2009. But once he realised that he did not need the BJP and to wash his hands off the worst communal carnage in Odisha history, ie, the 2008 Kandhamal carnage, he dropped the BJP and joined hands with the left parties, whom he needed in 2009, Niranjan Patnaik pointed out.
He said the fact is Naveen Patnaik kept changing parties and friends, not based on any ideology but for political calculations. What is astonishing is that despite that he has been changing his friends and dumping them, people are joining him! How else can one explain leaders from different parties joining the BJD knowing full well that they will become insignificant courtiers once coming to the BJD foldIJ
Naveen Patnaik’s pronouncements do not indicate any ideological position nor should they be taken seriously. No one should be sure that he will dump the ‘equidistant’ rhetoric to join the BJP once again now that the Kandhamal riots are fading from public memory and, of course, he can always find the assurance of Special Category State status, timely revision of mining royalty and a few other State-specific favours to cross the line back to the NDA fold, the senior Congress leader remarked.
He is also waiting to see if he needs to use his ‘secular’ claim and be part of a Third Front. He will always be noncommittal because he lacks any ideological commitment or conviction. He is opportunism personified, stated Niranjan Patnaik and urged all right thinking people to reject Naveen Patnaik’s brand of opportunistic politics while voting during the elections.