Bhubaneswar, Oct. 16: One has set his eyes on conquering Gujarat for the fourth time. The other is out to vanquish his loyalist-turned-rival in Odisha to ensure a smooth ride to the throne for the fourth time a year-and-half later.
Despite their ambitious streak and mass appeal, their lives revolved around widely different cultural orbits.
One was practically born with a silver spoon in his mouth, dined with top-drawer socialites around the world and wrote high-end coffee table books before being pushed, willy-nilly, into the political arena after his father’s death.
The other, born to middle-class parents, started out as an RSS pracharak, as austere and Spartan as any of them. But he grabbed the opportunity to make it big on the political stage with both hands and emerged as one of the most popular, though controversial, chief ministers of the country.
Call it a coincidence that Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik happens to be a bachelor while his Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi, loves to tell the world that he is one despite claims to the contrary. But, there are so many fascinating similarities and dissimilarities between Naveen, who celebrated his 67th birthday today, and Modi, that making a comparison would seem hard to resist.
Among the two most powerful regional satraps of the country, both learnt the political ropes quickly and have been ruthless while demolishing their enemies.
If Modi got the better of the likes of Keshubhai Patel and Sanjay Joshi, Naveen has left behind a trail of fallen adversaries during his 12 years in office.
If Modi got the better of the likes of Keshubhai Patel and Sanjay Joshi, Naveen has left behind a trail of fallen adversaries during his 12 years in office. One of the first to get a taste of his ruthlessness was former BJD political affairs committee chairperson Bijay Mohapatra (now in BJP), who was denied the party ticket and thrown out unceremoniously.
The latest example of Naveen’s “killer” image as a politician is the short shrift given to his one-time confidante and Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra.
But, the similarities perhaps end just there. Despite their equally big ambitions, the two leaders have been vastly different in style and demeanour and even in terms of their ideologies. On the personal front, while Naveen was quick to discard his party boy image to don the crumpled kurta-pyjama, Modi has been making his own style statement with his trimmed beard and designer half-sleeved kurtas.
While Naveen zipped around the world in his younger days and speaks clipped English, Modi is still struggling with the language and was recently denied a visa to travel to the US, a fall out of the communal image, which has stuck to him since the Godhra riots.
Godhra, it seems, will haunt Modi forever, and his existence will depend upon how successfully he can polarise his voters on communal lines.
In sharp contrast, Naveen dumped his ally, the BJP, following the Kandhamal riots of 2008 and immediately acquired a secular image, which has been working to his advantage till date.
