Bhubaneswar, March 5: On a day dripping with sweat and emotions, chief minister Naveen Patnaik struck the right chord evoking his father Biju Patnaik over and over again as he hopped from one programme to another on the legend's birth centenary that is being celebrated across the state.
Biju legacy, a political weapon the BJD has been honing and putting to good use in elections since its inception in 1997, took the centre stage as Naveen, who was the chief guest at half a dozen of Biju centenary events in Bhubaneswar today, dwelt on the larger-than-life persona of his father, his dreams and aspirations at length.
For someone who has been a butt of endless jokes for wearing an eternally bored expression, Naveen looked remarkably fresh at the party event held at the Baramunda ground where he sought to whip up regional sentiments describing his father as the symbol of Odia pride and prosperity. Fine-tuning the BJD's strategy of milking the Biju legacy politically, he put Biju babu on a pedestal much higher than that reserved for politicians. "He was an institution," said Naveen, who will need the Biju magic to work for his party in the panchayat elections to be held early next year.
With the rural polls playing on his mind, he announced a hike in the remuneration of panchayat functionaries at various levels across the state while addressing the official Panchayat Divas celebrations that are held on this day every year in the honour of the late statesman. Panchayat elections would be the ultimate litmus test for political parties ahead of the next Assembly polls due in 2019.
Naveen, who continues to have a love-hate relationship with the Modi government, also took aim at the Centre accusing it of not providing funds to key institutions such as the district rural development agencies and forcing the state to merge them with the zilla parishads. Though he did not cite any other major example of the Centre's alleged step-motherly approach towards the state, a perennial refrain of the BJD, it was obvious that he wanted Biju babu's Odia pride slogan to strike a chord with the people in that context.
Sources in the BJD said Naveen's rhetoric focusing on regional pride was a political compulsion given the fact that he leads one of the most successful regional parties of the country. Invoking the Biju legacy has also been part of a deliberate strategy but the opposition is far from convinced. "All these years, they have been talking of Biju Patnaik's dream for Odisha, but no one ever had a clear idea of what that dream was. Fortunately, they have put advertisements in newspapers today, from which it appears that Biju babu wanted pucca houses and potable water for all, among several other things. We want to know what this government has done so far to realise those dreams. Who are they trying to fool?" asked state BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma.
Former state Congress president Jaydev Jena went a step further, alleging that all the talk about Biju Patnaik's dream Odisha was nothing but sheer propaganda. "He never had any dream. So, where is the question of fulfilling his dream?" said Jena, also accusing the government of misusing official machinery for organising party events.
