It was 2000. There was euphoria all around. Now that the new regional party BJD formed on the ideals of legendary leader and former CM Biju Patnaik was all set to contest its maiden Assembly poll with its top leaders making hectic preparations. Bijay Mohapatra was one of them.
Mohapatra who had been winning from Patkura seat repeatedly in past elections was too the BJD nominee this time and was confident to maintain the winning streak so as to propel his larger ambitions. However, something else was in store for him.
The people of the State had been fed up with the Congress Government for its misrule and corruption. The Super Cyclone of October 1999 had wrecked havoc and spread untold miseries in terms of human toll and devastation, which coupled with other factors, aggravated a strong anti-incumbency. The last two CMs like Giridhar Gamag and Hemananda Biswal of Congress had displayed their sheer ineptitude in alleviating human woes.
On the other hand, the Biju sympathy wave was strong. At this critical juncture, came the BJD as a silver lining. It was opportune time for the leaders, including Mohapatra, who took pioneering role in forming the new regional party. A Biju follower and a high profile Minister of Biju regime in 1990-95, Mohapatra was leading the poll management of the party and was attending a meeting of the party workers at Bhubaneswar when all hell broke loose. As if a bolt from the blue, did come the news that his nomination had been cancelled by BJD boss Naveen Patnaik.
Mohapatra had no time to file nomination afresh and it was sure that he was not contesting the poll. Smarting under humiliation, Mohapatra had had an inkling of the kind of politician that Naveen Patnaik was whom most of the architects of BJD were misconstruing as immature and gullible and thought of making the most by keeping him as a sign post.
It remained no secret later that Patnaik had begun to be suspicious of Mohapatra as a threat to him from the very beginning and there was perhaps no better occasion to clip his wings for all time to come.
In the BJP Mohapatra had been for nine years after his OGP severed ties with the NCP for tying up with BJD in 2009 elections, but he was still perhaps not finding the space he expected to thrive. His colleagues in the BJP too were suspicious of him when he began adopting stands on issues contrary to that of the party.
His statements were often making it clear that he was not comfortable in the BJP. Things had reached the end of the tether and his putting in papers was on expected line.
What now looks far more important is his next course of action, especially of the speculations of his rejoining the BJD.
However, the BJD ‘now’ is altogether different from the BJD in 2000 at its nascent stage. For leaders who held sway in the party in 2000, Patnaik was relevant being the son of Biju. But at present, the BJD is synonymous with Patnaik, the same man who made or marred the political careers of many heavyweights, including Mohapatra. And how BJD can find Mohapatra to be an asset now or Mohapatra can find the BJD headed by Patnaik to be right forum remains a big question.