Bhubaneswar, May 17: It was a routine affair when chief minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the Biju Patnaik Medicinal Garden and Research Centre at Jeypore on May 8. After all, this was not the first time that he was naming a garden after his father.

In March, the chief minister inaugurated an open-air jail and correctional centre in Jamujhari on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

On his father’s birth anniversary, he cut the ribbons of the Biju Patnaik State Police Academy at Ranasinghpur and laid the foundation stone of Biju Patnaik Energy Park at Khandagiri.

Since riding to power on the back of a pro-Biju Patnaik wave in March 2000, Patnaik has done his father proud by naming dozens of projects after him. If there is Biju Krushak Vikash Yojana to promote minor and lift irrigation, the Biju Patnaik youth, sports and bravery awards are given during the birth anniversary of the legendary leader.

Heading the list of course is, Biju Patnaik Airport in the Orissa capital, a gleaming marble-and-glass edifice, designed to impress Indian business visitors as well as foreign tourists.

Similarly, the Biju Patnaik National Steel Institute spread over three acres on the Puri sea beach came up in January 2002 when Braja Kishore Tripathy was the steel minister in the NDA government at the Centre. It is a different matter altogether that the institute mandated to develop trained manpower for steel making industries is dying a slow death.

The state’s only technology university is called Biju Patnaik University of Technology while the biggest recreational park in Bhubaneswar has been christened Biju Patnaik Park.

Leader of Opposition J.B Patnaik calls this a mania. “It’s just not proper,” said the Congress, who, during his tenure, named several projects and institutions after Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Steel and mines minister Padmanabha Behera, however, feels that there is nothing wrong in naming projects after Biju Patnaik. “His contribution to the state is legendary. However, the name should not be used for all and the sundry,” he said.

Even inventions sometimes are named after living politicians. A few years ago, the Central Rice Research Institute promptly named a new variety of rice Naveen. Earlier, a mango variety was named after J.B. Patnaik while the city-based Central Institute of Freshwater Aqua culture named a hybrid fish Jayanti after JB’s wife.

At the Regional Plant Resource Centre, known to have the single-largest collection of cacti in India, there are several varieties named after Prime Ministers and chief ministers. There is a cactus named Atal. Similarly, there are other cacti named after former Union agriculture minister Nitish Kumar.

But in the name game, it is Prasanna Patsani, the MP from Bhubaneswar, who takes the cake. Patsani has no less than 16 schools and colleges named after him.

Kabi Prasanna Patasani High School and Kabi Prasanna Patasani Law College are just two of them.