New Delhi: In his first address to the media after facing defeat in the Odisha assembly elections, former chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday (June 8) underlined that he will continue to serve the people of the state and called the criticisms against bureaucrat-turned-politician V.K. Pandian as “unfortunate”.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
“In a democracy you know you have to either win or you lose, so having been defeated after a long time, we must always take the verdict of the people gracefully. I have always said that the four and a half crore people of Odisha are my family and I’ll continue to serve them in whichever way I can,” the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Patnaik said.
As his party faced a humiliating defeat, Patnaik himself lost from the Kantabanji assembly constituency in western Odisha but managed to win in Hinjili with a small margin of a little over 4,600 votes.
On Pandian, he mentioned: “It has also come to my notice that there has been some criticism of Mr Pandian. This is unfortunate. As an officer he did excellent work in many fields in the last 10 years — helping with the cyclone, the two cyclones and with the COVID-19 epidemic in our state.”
“After this good work he retired from the bureaucracy and joined my party and has contributed largely to that by doing excellent work. He is a person of integrity and honesty and should be remembered for that,” Patnaik added, “I would also like to add that Mr. Pandian has also worked in and helped in education, health, sports and our programme of temple restoration. Mr Pandian joined the party (and) has not held any post, as you know he didn’t fight this election from any constituency, and I have always clearly said that when they ask me about my successor, I have said that it is not Mr Pandian and I repeat it that the people of Odisha will decide my successor.”
Pandian, an IAS officer of the 2000 batch served as private secretary to Patnaik for over two decades. After taking voluntary retirement in October 2023, he joined the BJD and was given the rank of a cabinet minister. However, he was not given any party responsibilities. He also took centre stage in the BJD’s campaign.
Also read: How V.K. Pandian Scripted Naveen Patnaik’s Humiliating Electoral Loss in Odisha
The BJP and the Congress campaigned against Pandian’s elevation in the BJD, and made a huge outcry about a non-Odia’s possibility of becoming Patnaik’s successor. BJD could not win a single Lok Sabha seat out of the 21 in Odisha, and also lost the assembly election to the BJP after 25 years of continuous reign. The saffron party’s crucial win in Odisha also helped Narendra Modi to secure a third term for the National Democratic Alliance which suffered great losses in the Hindi heartland.
Soon after the results, several BJD leaders blamed Pandian for their defeat, and also expressed their anger over his presence in the party office in Bhubaneswar. Patnaik’s responses were as much a message for his own party as the opposition.
Further, the five-time chief minister dismissed the claims of his political opponents regarding his health. “There have been some questions on my health. I want to say here quite categorically that my health has always been fine and continues to be so. You have seen that in the last month, I have done hectic campaigning in the heat and that should be enough to give a verdict on my health,” Patnaik said.
Patnaik was the chief minister of Odisha since 2000. In the assembly elections, his party has won only 51 seats in the 147-member state assembly; the BJP, with 78 seats, got a clear majority to form a government in the state. In Lok Sabha polls held simultaneously, the BJD drew a blank while the BJP won 20 out of the 21 seats and the Congress got one.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.
