Naveen Patnaik has proven himself to be the most popular Chief Minister in India. Even late West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu from the Marxist fold, who held a record for the longest-serving CM, did not have the invincibility Naveen commands today. Basu had a chequered graph -- rising and falling in number of election victory seats; and he never enjoyed the mass adulation like Naveen, whose popularity graph is just incredibly steady.
This story is not meant to eulogise Naveen. What makes him so strong and invincible is an amusing case in point. When Naveen first showed up as legendary Biju Patnaik’s least-known younger son, people imagined he would only play puppet in the hands of rogue politicians who wanted to encash on the Biju legacy. Bijubabu was deified much before he died. He was considered the only politician who meant as well as did good works for the State. So, anyone from his family would do the magic in the game of popular politics.
Naveen agreed to take over, but he had made his mind clear before the self-serving rogues that he would work for the State’s development by serving the poorest of the poor in a strictly disciplined manner. He knew seasoned bureaucrats would be the best community to guide him properly, without which the political gangsters would eat up the State along with him. So came in Pyari Mohan Mahapatra, the long-time trusted lieutenant to Bijubabu, who was inducted as principal guru and guide. Thereafter, how political detractors got fixed or axed is only ordinary history by now.
Naveen has made sure right from the beginning that politicians, especially the self-serving, loudmouths listened to gutsy, spotless and honest bureaucrats, particularly from the IAS cadre, who would determine what is important for the State, design people-friendly schemes and call all critical shots. The political executive would only act as the front and ensure that the people benefitted on all counts. The masses got to know this special arrangement quite early and are pretty much happy as the going is good. Further, any bureaucrat who is too willing to take the extra mile is naturally closer to the boss than others who are not in a position to remain engaged in a glued manner due to personal circumstances. Detractors and opponents keep ranting about Naveen running a bureaucracy in Odisha because they fail to realise the fact that bureaucrats only guide the political executive critically and do nothing more. Today, the political class, by and large dumb in head and populist, feel safe to be guided by the prudent bureaucrats by keeping away from risks of law and rule violation.
Naveen hasn’t changed his style of functioning once in all these twenty years. Good governance is his primary objective. For this, all the trusted core group officials have been asked to keep him updated on all fronts and take his final orders to carry out without fail.
There is another big reason why Naveen is enormously popular.The opposing parties including BJP and Congress have never been able to match his popularity as they have no charismatic leader in their midst. The BJP has lately made some insignificant, flimsy impact due to Modi's dramatic moves like Article 370 scrapping and Balakote strikes. Obviously, the BJP has emerged as a popular alternative because of terrible Congress blunders on countless fronts. The Odisha Congress party has been reduced to an intangible idea only. Infighting has never stopped, even during their worst times. The incumbent president has lost everything, political seat, face and reputation. He is just a skeletal symbol of a vanquished outfit. The Odisha Congress is fast degenerating into a bitter episode in pages of the State’s political history. Even in Madhya Pradesh, the frontline leaders are out to topple the Kamal Nath Government by defecting into the BJP as they have to survive as politicians.
But Naveen is gaining in popularity by the day. He has been particularly adored for a few specific reasons: he is unmarried; has the simplest-ever lifestyle; speaks only when necessary and that too in two or three sentences; never speaks ill of even the worst enemy or detractor no matter how vitriolic or scandalous he or she is. His legendary father, despite his immeasurable popularity, did not enjoy such love and respect as Naveen is basking in the popularity glory today.
For the first time in Odisha's political history, mainstream career politicians are expected to behave well with the people and do as told by the well-meaning bureaucrats who go by the rulebook in hand.
Even while choosing candidates for elections, Naveen puts his lieutenants to do a thorough due diligence on the antecedents of the potential candidates and chooses those who are adored and respected by the masses. A few exceptions occur though, only when political compulsions are extremely high.
His latest choice of Rajya Sabha candidates is superbly made on accurate calculations. Only those highly qualified or people’s guys with a heart and mind for the poor are eventually chosen. The latest selected candidates include Sujit Kumar who has been an international bureaucrat after having been at the best universities of the world including Harvard and serving at the most prestigious global institutions like the World Economic Forum, Davos in Switzerland. He has been part of several flagship programmes and schemes of the government as an experienced, highly exposed professional. Subas Singh, once a firebrand unionist, has been a hardcore people’s leader for quite some time. He was one of the frontline spokespersons for the BJD. Munna Khan, a Biju-devotee movie idol and a popular leader from the minority community has been going places for long. And most admirably, Naveen chose a nondescript woman social worker called MamataMahanta who has been working for the poorest of the poor women of the tribal Mayurbhanj district since a decade without expecting any reward. She is from a very backward Kudumi community found only in Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts. She has been closely working with hundreds of Self-Help Groups that promote socioeconomic empowerment through micro enterprises and thrift activities. By the time World Woman’s Day was around, Mahanta got her due recognition from Naveen. No wonder why Naveen is so popular among the people.
Lastly, on this day in March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi's Dandi March had commenced. Seventy-eight people had walked with the Mahatma across 240 km between his ashram in Sabarmati and the coastal village of Dandi. The march was an act of civil resistance against the British law that banned production of salt by poor people for livelihood.
Naveen, a staunch Gandhi follower, has invariably been advocating for inclusion of ‘nonviolence’ in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, and logically so.