New Delhi: Launching his poll campaign in Odisha on April 25, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union home minister Amit Shah termed chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s tenure as “lost years”.
Addressing a rally in Sonepur, he said while BJP-led state governments were “scaling new heights of development”, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in Odisha not only “hindered the state’s progress but also allowed corrupt officials to distance Odisha from its linguistic and cultural heritage.”
He went on to accuse the chief minister of taking credit for Central schemes, diverting attention from the Ram Mandir’s inauguration from Ayodhya by launching the temple heritage corridor in Puri on the same day, and not implementing the Modi government’s Ayushman Bharat health insurance. He then promised to stop labour migration and transform Odisha into a “number one” state with world-class industries, foreign investments, and fully irrigated agriculture. He added that if elected, the BJP will develop Puri on the lines of Varanasi.
“You have given 25 years to BJD… give five years to BJP. We will ensure the development of the state. Modi’s aim of Viksit Bharat can be realised when Odisha will also prosper,” he appealed to the people of Odisha, even as he stressed the importance of a government in Odisha that respected Odia cultural heritage, literature and language – a dig on the popular chief minister Patnaik whose poor Odia speaking ability has often drawn him flak from opposition parties.
Shah’s remarks appeared particularly scathing in a context where the BJP’s central leadership tried for days to stitch up an alliance with BJD. The attempt remained unsuccessful, amidst great resistance from the BJP’s state leadership and BJD legislators. Now, Shah’s statement has set the stage for a high-pitched battle in Odisha between the two parties.
It, however, turns out that much of what Shah claimed about Odisha’s “lost years” was far from the complete truth. The BJD’s enormous electoral successes and Patnaik’s consistent popularity because of his multi-layered welfare measures for the poor bear proof of the improvements in the state that was considered one of the poorest in India. Odisha’s growth, thus, has to be measured with a 25-year benchmark in mind.
One of the prestige projects of the BJD government in Odisha is the 5T initiative modeled on the Niti Aayog style of governance. The acronym 5T stands for Teamwork, Transparency, Technology, Time, and Transformation and centres around better delivery of services.
Irrigation
According to a high-level official who did not want to be named, around 15 pending big and medium irrigation projects – including the Lower Indra dam, Subarnarekha and Deo dam in Mayurbhanj, Upper Indravati Lift canal in Kalahandi, Ghatakeswar in Ganjam, Kusumi barrage in Nayagarh – were cleared and the state government hopes to complete them in the next three years. He said that both the chief minister and 5T chairman are overseeing these projects.
“The work of other ongoing projects namely Kanupur, Rengali Left & Right Canal, Anadapur barrage, Chheligada, and Hadua are now in advanced stage and going to be completed within the next one and half year. A major project like the Gangadhar Meher Lift Irrigation project in Bargarh which was started in 2020 has been completed within a record three years’ time and the Sandul barrage in Kalahandi has been completed within two years, five months ahead of schedule completion time,” the official said.
Odisha chief minister at Lower Suktel Dam. Photo: Special arrangement.
He said that nearly 4 lakh acres of land have been provided irrigation through medium irrigation projects and storage facilities for water has been created at a rapid pace.
Although Shah said that Odisha is one of the most poorly irrigated states in India, the BJD government over the last few years has campaigned around its apparent strides in the irrigation sector. The official data claim that the irrigation potential created in the state has nearly doubled from 62.60 lakh acres (25.33 lakh hectares) in 2000-01 to 118.50 lakh acre (48 lakh hectares) in 2022-23.
Other sectors
Even central institutions controlled by the Union government show that Odisha under Patnaik has shown improvements in nearly all sectors.
A discussion paper in Niti Aayog shows that multidimensional poverty in Odisha showed an 18.27% point decline between 2015-16 and 2022-23, while the Indian average decline was around 13.57%. The same paper claims that 102.78 lakh people were lifted out of multidimensional poverty in the nine years.
The social sector’s improvements were also significant in the same period. Odisha registered a decline in maternal mortality rate by 33.9% from 2014-16 and 2018-20, from 180 per one lakh live births to 119, according to the SRS MMR Bulletin published by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner.
According to the same report, also corroborated by different NFHS reports, institutional deliveries in Odisha also increased significantly from 35.6% in 2005-06 to 92.2% in 2019-20. The report also claimed that the state saw a decline of 21.73% in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) from 2015 to 2020.
As per NFHS 5 (2019-21), 90.5% of children aged 12-23 months were fully vaccinated in Odisha as compared to the national average of 76.4%.The state also witnessed a 54.4% point increase between 1992 to 2021 as against 41% points increase in the national average, according to NFHS 5.
Apart from these, the NFHS report also said that household access to improved drinking water sources increased from 50.9% in 1992 to 91.1% in 2021. The sanitation facility in Odisha also increased from 12.2% in 1992 to 60.5% in 2021, much higher than the national average of 39.9%.
The use of clean cooking fuel in Odisha, too, increased from 9.8% in 2005-06 to 34.7% in 2019, according to NFHS. The same survey also found that electricity access for households increased from 27.8% in 1992 to 97% in 2021, as against 45.9% point increase nationally in the corresponding period.
While data indicates a different story from what Shah attempted to portray about the BJD-led government, the biggest political success of the Patnaik government was to increase the participation of rural women in economic activities. His idea to create SHGs in rural areas has been a phenomenal success, and so has been his welfare measures for women and girl child under the programme Mission Shakti – a fact that every observer of Odisha will vouch for.
Patnaik’s regime has also seen massive improvements in tourism, infrastructure development, and sporting facilities in rural areas. Observers, however, believe that his government has been casual about dealing with corruption and fared poorly in responding to ground-level resentment against land acquisition and forced mining projects. They also believe that his government has performed poorly in generating employment. There is also the belief that he has done relatively little on developing quality education and health infrastructure in rural areas, but much of that discontentment is offset by the state government’s robust health insurance scheme, which is much better than the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat in terms of its cover and number of ailments.
Against such a backdrop, it is apparent that Shah chose the wrong route. His criticism of the Patnaik government was not only misleading but also inaccurate. He could have cornered the state government on a range of issues which resonated with Odias but chose to speak about Patnaik’s alleged lack of respect for Odia Asmita (pride) and poor performance, in the process betraying his own poor grip on Odisha’s real issues.
