local MlA Ranendra Pratap Swain, a post-graduate and having won for six consecutive times with tremendous leadership quality and experience, has not been inducted in the new BJD Ministry.
Though he had expected a lot to get a berth of Minister this time, his hopes fell like nine pins when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ignored him.
Since loyalty and clean image were major criteria to get to the plum post of Minister, Swain certainly failed on the second condition. Swain turned a controversial figure when he failed to dictate terms on his protégé Ramesh Rout and grew revengeful towards him.
Rout became a MlA from Athagarh in 2009 polls when Swain could not contest it after his nomination was cancelled. He had fielded Rout virtually as his dummy. However, after Rout won the elections, he forced him to resign so that a by-election was held and he got a chance to contest it again. But it was not to be. Rout was supported by then BJD’s most powerful man Pyarimohan Mohapatra. This was also a reason why power-hungry Swain fell out with Mohapatra.
When Swain won his case in the Supreme Court and got a party ticket of BJD for the by-election 2012, he was supported by a few BJD leaders like Dr Dama Rout, who never saw Mohapatra eye to eye. Swain won the polls, but nevertheless the tag of being a controversial leader did not lift off.
It is alleged that Swain never allows somebody to have an upper hand over him in Athagarh politics. Thus he used to avoid intellectuals and trust the uneducated and meek ones. This is the reason why he posted in different political posts persons who were not much educated or who did not know the utility of the posts in panchayat and NAC levels.
He seems to have little tolerance for those who tried to flex political muscle or did not fall in his line. In either case, he just threw them to dustbin. Ramesh Rout’s case is a shining example.
But his boss Chief Minister Patnaik is a bigger and shrewder player. Swain is heard to have applied all tactics to mould Patnaik in order to get a berth in the new Ministry, but they all fell flat.
He is stated to have exercised the best of lobby and even made propaganda in media that he was taking a Cabinet berth before Patnaik formed his Ministry. But his hopes were dashed when he was not hand-picked while persons with less experience, even first-timers, were chosen. Swain’s supporters are stated to have stocked many crackers which they would have exploded had Swain got a post of Minister. Now, Swain and his supporters are a dejected lot; their crackers remain unused.