“I do not earn enough from selling fruits to get him treated. But thanks to the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, now I can afford his treatment. The free ration that we get ensures my family does not go hungry. I avail the Lakshmi bus service to go to the block headquarters to get medicines for my husband. Tell me if I do not pray for him, who should I pray for,” Khumbar says.
Even after being in power for close to 25 years, there has been little dent to Patnaik’s image of a simple man, who does not have any vices. The sentiment is more pronounced in rural areas, where Patnaik continues to enjoy popularity. A popular refrain of people in many Odia villages and town alike is that they will go with Naveen Patnaik in the assembly elections and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls.
Rajkishore Mal, 63, a farmer in Baliguali village in Odisha’s coastal town of Puri,
says that right from birth to death, Patnaik has taken care of everything. “If someone has supported you like this, how do you betray the person’s trust?” he asks.
Apart from his clean image and frugal lifestyle, the plethora of schemes and programs targeting all section of the population, be it poor, women, elderly, farmers, etc. forms the bedrock of Patnaik’s popularity in the state.
Last year, Patnaik launched the third phase of his government’s flagship universal health coverage scheme — the Biju Kalyan Swasthya Yojana — under which the poor are provided free treatment in any government hospital, with no limit. For treatment in private hospitals, men can avail up to Rs 5 lakh while for women the cap is Rs 10 lakh.
The Patnaik-led government has announced a raft of welfare schemes targeting the poor in the last two years. In February, it launched the Swatantra Yuba Udyami (SWAYAM) where bank loans of up to Rs 1 lakh is provided without interest to young men and women in the 18-35 age bracket to start business.
The same month, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government increased the monthly pension for the elderly from the existing Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 under the Madhu Babu Pension scheme. It also announced the Mo Ghara scheme to provide low cost housing to poor families, who have been left out of the existing housing schemes.
The Laxmi bus service, launched in February, connects every village in a district to the block headquarters. The buses, run by the government, provide cheap and reliable transportation to villagers, who otherwise have to fend for themselves if they have to go to the block headquarters.
Then, there is the Ama Odisha, Nabin Odisha (Our Odisha, New Odisha) where panchayats get Rs 50 lakh assistance to take up projects for protecting places of worship, upgrading sites of historical significance and improving rural infrastructure and digital access.
Traveling across coastal and western Odisha towns of Puri, Bubaneswar, Kendrapara, Sambalpur and Kalahandi, ThePrint spoke to several dozen people in rural and urban pockets, who said they still want to see Naveen Patnaik as the CM after 25 years. Even if people are resentful against the local MLAs in some areas, who they say have rarely visited their constituency in the last five years, there is no resentment against Patnaik.
“There is a lot of anti-incumbency against local BJD leaders but not against Naveen Patnaik. The feeling is that the local MLA can be bad, not Patnaik,” says Pradipta Kumar Pradhan, ex-sarpanch of Baccharai village in Kendrapara’s Patkura area.
For instance, people in Kendrapara are angry with Odia actor Anubhav Mohanty, the former BJD MP who joined the BJP recently. “After winning the seat, he did not see the soil of Kendrapara,” Pradhan says.
Local BJD workers ThePrint spoke to say that people are angry with some of the party MPs and local MLAs, who disappeared from their constituency after winning elections or did not do enough for their constituents.
This coupled with the party’s ticket distribution criteria where many outsiders or close relatives of leaders were given tickets ignoring the local leaders, and Patnaik’s close aide VK Pandian becoming more and more visible instead of the CM has also become a talking point among voters not only in towns and cities but rural areas too.
“This could have an impact on the outcome in both the Lok Sabha and assembly elections,” a local BJD leader in Sambhalpur, who did not want to be named, tells ThePrint.
Odisha will have simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in four phases starting May 13.
“There is anti-incumbency against the government, against local leaders but not Naveen Patnaik,” says Bhabani Shanker Tripathy, news editor of Odia daily Sambad, the state’s largest circulating newspaper.
Similar sentiment prevails in other areas too, where people are making a clear distinction between voting Patnaik in the state and Narendra Modi for the Lok Sabha.
Former Odisha chief secretary Jugal Mohapatra says that Naveen Patnaik continues to be popular among the people because in all these years he has not done anything to provoke anti-incumbency. “Be it disaster management or the public distribution system, the government has done good work. The overall development, be it roads or other infrastructure such as power supply has been good,” he says.
Mohapatra adds that Patnaik’s USP remains his clean, simple image and no established corruption charge against him. “The perception management of BJD is very strong,” he says, adding that Patnaik is an astute politician, who has co-opted very well with whichever party has been there at the Centre.
Voting for Odisha’s four parliamentary seats of Berhampur, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi and Koraput will take place 13 May. The assembly segments falling under these four LS constituencies will vote the same day, while the remaining go to polls on 20 May, 25 May and 1 June.
Also Read: In Odisha’s Kendrapara, the fight is between BJP’s Baijayant Panda and the legacy of Biju Patnaik
‘Will vote for BJD as long as Naveen Patnaik is there’
However, Odias this time around including in rural areas are openly talking about how they will vote for BJD as long as Naveen Patnaik is the chief minister.
“We read news that Naveen babu is not keeping well. We don’t know. But I am clear about one thing. As long as Naveen Patnaik is there, I will vote for him. When he is not there, I will see who to go with,” says Trilochan Muduli, a resident of Bachhaarai village in Patkura.
Muduli says he likes Patnaik because he speaks less but “has a connection with us.”
During poll campaigning, several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJD’s primary challenger in Odisha, have raked up the issue of Naveen Patnaik’s successor.
Baijayant Panda, the BJP candidate from Kendrapara, had told ThePrint in an interview that one of the key questions that the people of Odisha are grappling with is who will be Naveen Patnaik’s successor, and lack of clarity on this is damaging the party.
“Naveen Patnaik has been the CM for 24 years, and now that another election cycle has come upon us, the question of who is his successor, his uttaradhikari, is causing them huge damage. No matter how they try to dance their way around it, people are not happy,” Panda, who is also the BJP’s national vice president, had said.
Women continue to rally behind Naveen Patnaik
Women across the state, especially who are part of Self Help Groups (SHG) continue to form the biggest support base of the Odisha CM.
Mohapatra says that the Naveen Patnaik led BJD government has nurtured SHG through public funds but during elections, they are used for electoral gain. “The BJD is trying to convert social capital into political capital,” he tells ThePrint.
Tathagata Satpathy, former BJD MP concurs. “Naveen Patnaik is liked primarily by the women folk in Odisha,” he says.
Satpathy feels that Patnaik has taken meticulous care in ensuring that his image remains squeaky clean.
“Till now, there have been no allegations whatsoever against Naveen Patnaik himself. He ensures that. And, that has helped him. All the time he has won against the wave. And, if at all the BJP makes huge inroads even in LS seats this time, it could indicate that Naveen Patnaik has finally been pushed back. And if the BJP fails this time, that will only reaffirm that Naveen Patnaik has managed to retain his image, his political ethos and ethics, and what he stands for intact,” the former BJD MP asserts.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Don’t agree with BJD’s anti-Odia approach, rampant corruption, says Dharmendra Pradhan