From Pyari to Sujata: Bureaucrats who shaped — and shook — Odisha politics

Unusual as it was, Patnaik’s caveat highlighted not only the row surrounding Rout’s entry into the BJD but also the growing role of bureaucrats in Odisha politics. From Rout and her husband, V K Pandian, to BJP leaders Ashwini Vaishnaw and Aparajita Sarangi, the past two decades have seen a growing number of civil servants take the political plunge, albeit with vastly different outcomes.

“Ever since he entered politics at the age of 51, Patnaik has cultivated a leadership style centred on a trusted bureaucrat helping steer both the government and the party,” says a BJD veteran.

Here’s how bureaucracy has made an impact on Odisha’s politics.

Sujata Rout

If there’s one thing Sujata Rout Karthikeyan, a 2000-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre, is known for, it is the BJD government’s flagship Mission Shakti initiative on women’s empowerment. A 51-year-old from Baluria village in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, Sujata is the daughter of a doctor and spent part of her childhood in Jamshedpur.

It was during training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) that she met V K Pandian, one of the most divisive names in recent Odisha politics. Pandian later moved from the Punjab cadre to Odisha. The couple has two children.

Before taking voluntary retirement in March 2025, Sujata oversaw Mission Shakti for more than six years — first as director under the state’s Women and Child Development Department and later as commissioner-cum-secretary after the department was created in June 2021. The scheme has been credited with helping the BJD build a vote bank among women and propelling it through multiple elections.

A BJD leader says Patnaik wanted to bring Sujata into the party even before Pandian. But while Patnaik maintains that he still has a firm hold over the party, critics see her induction as part of his broader “succession strategy”.

A retired bureaucrat believes that while the trend of civil servants joining politics was previously not popular in Odisha, Patnaik’s political style “possibly encouraged other bureaucrats to swap bureaucracy for politics”.

Pyarimohan Mohapatra

Until his failed “coup” attempt in 2012 dislodged Patnaik, BJD leaders and Odisha bureaucrats turned to one address for advice — 111, Saheed Nagar in Bhubaneswar, the residence of Pyarimohan Mohapatra.

They had good reason to trust him: Mohapatra had served as principal secretary to Patnaik’s father, former chief minister Biju Patnaik, from 1990 until his retirement in 1995 and had been the guiding force behind Patnaik’s early political career.

Several BJD leaders say it was Mohapatra who helped the then political greenhorn Patnaik navigate the murky waters of Odisha politics after he broke away from the Janata Dal to found the BJD in 1997. It was Mohapatra who helped Patnaik sideline intra-party rivals and ascend to the chief minister’s chair for the first time in 2000.

It was also Mohapatra who became Patnaik’s eyes and ears and steered him through the challenges of governance — including the 2008 alliance fallout with the BJP and the party’s victory in 103 of the Assembly’s 147 seats the following year.

For Mohapatra, the years of loyalty paid off: in 2004 and 2010, Patnaik nominated ‘uncle’ Pyari to the Rajya Sabha. But as Mohapatra’s influence grew, cracks in their relationship began to show, with Patnaik even campaigning alone during the 2012 panchayat polls.

The final blow came on May 29, 2012, following Mohapatra’s alleged coup attempt while Patnaik was in London on his first overseas trip. The reprisals were swift — on June 1 that year, Mohapatra was expelled from the party by Patnaik, who called him ‘beimann’ [traitor].

Though Mohapatra vowed revenge and even floated his own political outfit — the Odisha Jana Morcha — ahead of the 2014 general and Assembly elections, it failed to make a mark. After his Rajya Sabha term ended in 2016, he receded into political oblivion before his death on March 19, 2017, at the age of 77.

V K Pandian

It was a photo that appeared on May 31, 2019 — two days after Naveen Patnaik took oath as chief minister of Odisha for the fifth time — that first catapulted Pandian into the national limelight. The photo showed a smiling Pandian, dressed in a white T-shirt, standing behind Patnaik at his official residence.

It sparked intrigue: the first glimpse of Pandian, Patnaik’s elusive private secretary since 2011, who was said to have helped keep the BJD in Patnaik’s hands following the Mohapatra fallout, and who would go on to become one of the party’s most divisive figures.

Pandian was the architect of several flagship initiatives, including the Rs 5-a-meal scheme, 5T and Mo Sarkar, and was credited with steering the state’s disaster response, earning Odisha UN recognition for mass evacuations.

“Mohapatra’s expulsion eased Pandian’s entry into Patnaik’s inner sanctum as he also started advising the BJD president on party matters,” one BJD leader says.

During COVID-19, when an ageing Patnaik remained largely confined to his home at Naveen Niwas, Pandian’s influence expanded, making him the most powerful figure in the government and the BJD after Patnaik. He oversaw projects such as the Shree Mandira Parikrama Project around the Jagannath Temple, and even used the state chopper to attend what he called “grievance meetings” in districts, a move Patnaik defended, saying it was done on his instructions.

Meanwhile, criticism grew, with Patnaik’s close aides such as Baijayant Panda and Pradeep Panigrahy clashing with the BJD, and eventually being expelled.

By the time he took voluntary retirement in October 2023 amid unabated public criticism, Pandian was considered the “most powerful bureaucrat” in the state. On November 27 that year, he joined the BJD, steering the party’s campaign for the 2024 Assembly election and reportedly playing a huge role in ticket distribution.

In the run-up, Pandian’s Tamil identity made him a target of BJP attacks. The party’s defeat to its former ally for the first time in 24 years also triggered a barrage of criticism against the former bureaucrat, prompting him to announce his exit.

Despite this, the former civil servant continues to enjoy Patnaik’s unwavering trust. Now heading the Biju-Naveen Foundation Trust, a little-known organisation based in New Delhi, Pandian recently shared photos and videos on Instagram of his visit to earthquake-hit Venezuela where he met interim President Delcy Rodriguez to discuss rescue efforts.

Aparajita Sarangi and Ashwini Vaishnaw

But it’s not only the BJD that has sought to swell its ranks with bureaucrats — the ruling BJP counts former IAS officers Aparajita Sarangi and Ashwini Vaishnaw among its leaders.

A 1994-batch IAS officer from Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, Sarangi is known as a hard taskmaster, a reputation she earned as commissioner of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation. As secretary of the School and Mass Education Department, she introduced several reforms, including uniforms for teachers. She also headed the flagship Mission Shakti programme from 2003 to 2007.

Sarangi opted for voluntary retirement while on central deputation in November 2018, joined the BJP ahead of the general election, and won the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls by comfortable margins. She is now the party’s national spokesperson and a key member of parliamentary committees.

Sarangi is married to fellow IAS officer and batchmate Santosh Sarangi, currently Union secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The couple has two children.

When Ashwini Vaishnaw was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers in 2021 with the heavyweight portfolios of Railways, Communications, and Electronics and Information Technology, he surprised many. A 1994-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre from Rajasthan’s Jodhpur, Vaishnaw brought extensive administrative experience, including a crucial operational role during the 1999 Super Cyclone.

Vaishnaw began his political career in June 2019, when he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Odisha as a BJP nominee. As the BJP lacked the numbers to elect him on its own, it secured BJD support, which it received again in February 2024.

As collector of Balasore and Cuttack, Vaishnaw came into the limelight during the 1999 Super Cyclone, when he tracked its path using the US Navy website and regularly updated the Odisha government. More than 10,000 people perished in the disaster.

During his civil service career, Vaishnaw served in the Prime Minister’s Office as deputy secretary and later as private secretary to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He quit the civil services in 2008 to set up automotive components manufacturing units in Gujarat.

It was during this period that he is believed to have come to the attention of Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, eventually joining the Union government, where he has, since 2024, also held the portfolios of Information and Broadcasting.

Other IAS officers, including Jatish Chandra Mohanty, who once served as private secretary to Chandrababu Naidu, and former Odisha chief secretary Bijay Patnaik, also briefly dabbled in politics, though with limited success. While Mohanty’s Samruddha Odisha failed to gain traction, Bijay Patnaik joined the Congress in 2023, headed its campaign committee, unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Assembly polls, and quit the party months later.