Naveen’s shot hits target, sparks ire

BHUBANESWAR, FEB 5: It was the shrewdest and boldest political move the state has witnessed in decades. A move executed with such remarkable precision and coldness that Bijay Mahapatra, doubtlessly one of the best political brains in the state, and others were found stupefied.

“How dare a political greenhorn like Naveen Patnaik take a unilateral decision like this?” was how the news of Bijay Mahapatra’s expulsion from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for six years and the simultaneous withdrawal of his ticket for the Assembly election was greeted with on Thursday night by almost everybody, including the former’s closest aides. Speaking to newspersons outside Naveen Nivas, Patnaik said he had no other option but to expel Mahapatra as “the matter was very serious”. He added: “His continuation, otherwise, would have not only adversely affected the BJD’s prospects in the coming polls but also of the future government,” he added.

The development has not only reduced Mahapatra, the all-powerful chairman of theBJD’s political affairs committee, to a non-entity in a party he had helped establish but is also threatening to short-circuit his chances of participating in the coming Assembly elections. He has been representing the Patkura seat in Kendrapada district since 1981 without a break.

The law requires 10 proposers in Mahapatra’s nomination papers to enable him to contest as an Independent. With the last date for filing nomination having expired at 3 p.m. on Thursday, he had no scope but to file a revised one as an Independent after he was stripped of the party ticket at the last moment.