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Journalism of Courage
BJD president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday, barely 48 hours after his meeting with Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar here, said, “There is no possibility of a Third Front as far as I am concerned. Not now.”
The BJD is also unlikely to change its policy of maintaining equal distance from the BJP and the Congress, at least before the 2024 general and Assembly polls. The Odisha CM on Thursday reaffirmed his party’s policy to fight elections on its own, without nourishing any national ambition. When asked if his party will go alone in the forthcoming polls, Patnaik said this has always been the principle of his party.
Patnaik, 76, who enjoys immense popularity among Odisha voters and continues to be at the helm since March 2000, is being approached by prominent Opposition leaders for an alliance to take on the Narendra Modi government. Currently, the party has 12 MPs in the Lok Sabha and eight in the Rajya Sabha.
Before Nitish, West Bengal CM and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had also called on Naveen at his residence here on March 23. After his meeting with both Mamata and Nitish, Naveen had ruled out speculation of any future political alliance.
Regarding his meeting with the PM, Naveen said he discussed issues related to Odisha’s demands. “I spoke to him about Shri Jagannath International Airport, which is being set up in Puri. The boundary for the airport is already earmarked. We want an expansion as Bhubaneswar is getting too much traffic now. The PM said he will definitely help in every way possible,” said Naveen.
The Doon School passout, who stepped into politics following his father and former chief minister Biju Patnaik’s death on April 17, 1997, had formed his party — BJD — on December 26 the same year, and entered into an alliance with the BJP. The BJD-BJP alliance rode to power in Odisha in March 2000. Nine years later, ahead of the 2009 general and Assembly polls, Naveen severed ties with the BJP and announced a policy of maintaining equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress. It maintains good relationships with any party that is in power at the Centre.
The CM, who enjoys good rapport with the PM, extended support to the Narendra Modi government when it passed contentious legislations, as well as presidential polls. It also stood with the NDA government on other matters like demonetisation, “surgical” strike and the scrapping of Article 370.
The BJD had also extended support to the Rajya Sabha candidature of bureaucrat-turned-politician Ashwini Vaishnaw in June 2019, when the BJP had fielded him despite not having adequate numbers. At a time when the BJP, which has replaced the Congress as the main opposition party in Odisha, has taken off its gloves to carry out an aggressive fight with the ruling BJD in the state, the meeting between the CM and the PM carries huge political significance.
The saffron party has recently appointed seasoned politician and organisational task master with RSS background, Manmohan Samal, as its state unit president. Union minister and BJP’s most prominent Odisha face Dharmendra Pradhan, has also been quite vocal against the BJD dispensation on different issues, especially on “law and order”.
Naveen had last met PM Modi on May 30, 2022, a month before the presidential polls in New Delhi, and had called it a courtesy visit.
Notwithstanding Thursday’s meeting between Patnaik and Modi, a senior BJP leader in Odisha, on condition of anonymity, said his party will continue its fight against the BJD dispensation to wrest power in Odisha.
