Banking on charisma, Naveen looks to beat anti-incumbency

Bhubaneswar: In power since 2000, and with 20 out of Odisha’s 21 Lok Sabha seats in his kitty, four-time chief minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik is confident of holding his stead one more time, especially in the face of an emergent BJP.

The state — where assembly and Lok Sabha elections will be held simultaneously — will vote in four phases on April 11, 18, 23 and 29.

To overcome perceived anti-incumbency, Naveen — who was BJP’s ally until 2009 and professes to maintain equidistance from both the saffron party and Congress since parting ways with the former — has focussed on his image as a clean politician, his popularity with women voters, welfare schemes such as Kalia (cash assistance for farmers) and the alleged neglect of Odisha by the Centre.

Many say the 73-year-old bachelor’s image may be squeaky clean, much like the pristine white kurta-pyjama he favours, but that of his government is considerably less so. While Naveen has never been accused of graft in his four terms as chief minister, his government has drawn the opposition’s ire for chit fund and mining scams.

“Naveen’s incorruptible image will be his biggest asset as he seeks a fifth term in a row. Political rivals have no leader to match his stature,” said Jayant Mohapatra, a retired professor of political science in Berhampur University.

Many also feel Naveen played his trump card hours before the poll dates were announced on March 8. At a public meeting in Kendrapada, he said Odisha would reserve 33 per cent of its Lok Sabha seats for women candidates, thus fulfilling his promise to field women in at least seven of the 21 parliamentary seats in Odisha.

Though BJP spokesperson and fellow Odia, Sambit Patra, countered by asking why Naveen was not replicating this in the assembly polls, the unprecedented initiative is likely to endear the chief minister to his core vote bank of women. In 2012, he had increased the seats reserved for women in panchayati raj institutions to 50 per cent from the 33 per cent introduced by his father, the late Biju Patnaik, in the Nineties. Women self-help groups, which get subsidized loans from the government, are key to Naveen’s continued run as chief minister.

Another strategy that the regional leader has adopted is replacing several sitting MLAs and MPs to beat localized anti-incumbency. The regional party has 118 out of the 147 MLAs in the outgoing assembly. In the first list of nine LS candidates, Naveen retained only one of his eight sitting MPs.

In the past one month, Naveen has toured all the 21 Lok Sabha segments multiple times and addressed several public meetings. A man of few words, he tends to keep his speeches short; however, even he has coined a catchphrase to draw claps and cheers — ‘aapana maane khusi ta? Mu bi khusi’ (Are you happy? I am also happy). The question has become the rage in the villages and towns of the state.

Naveen also does his meetings with a twist; his ministers and senior party leaders sit among the audience and are not allowed to speak. Instead, little-known women, farmers and youths share the stage with the chief minister, take selfies with him and deliver speeches in a people-connect move.

Naveen surprised everybody by picking Pramilla Bisoyi, a class II dropout self-help group worker, as MP candidate. “This has endeared him to the people, they can identify with his simplicity. He listens to the people more than he speaks to them,” said senior BJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Prasanna Acharya.

The strategy seems to be working. Laxmipriya Sha, a woman farmer from Balangir who shared the dais with Naveen at a public meeting in Bargarh district, said, “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I don’t know of any farmer in my village who has shared a stage with the chief minister and been allowed to speak. It is an honour for the farmer community.”

Stealing a march over BJP by launching Kalia — a cash assistance scheme of Rs 10,000 a year for farmers in a state where around 65 per cent of the families depend on agriculture — before the Centre brought about PM Kisan, Naveen is well and truly prepared for the polls. He has already distributed the first instalment of Rs 5,000 to more than 37 lakh farmers.

The regional party hopes to reap rich poll dividend from the scheme, as it is perceived to have drawn from the Re 1/kg rice scheme Naveen had launched in the run-up to the 2014 simultaneous elections. The BJD has first-mover advantage this time, as its Kalia scheme was announced before PM-Kisan; plus, it offers more money than the central scheme that promises Rs 6,000 in three instalments.

Like in the elections in 2009 and 2014, Naveen will again focus on the matter of alleged central neglect to Odisha. To its ongoing demand of special category tag for the state, BJD has latched on to the railway ministry’s recent move of bifurcating the East Cost Railway as yet another anti-Odisha step.

The BJP and Congress — faced with the Naveen juggernaut — are hoping that the people are in the mood for change. “Everyone is comparing 19 years of Naveen in Odisha with just five years of Modi at the Centre. No strategy will work for BJD this time,” BJP state vice-president Sameer Mohanty said.

The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president, Niranjan Patnaik, said farmers would not be fooled with Kalia or PM-Kisan. “People see new hope in Congress as we have promised complete farm loan waiver, better support price for paddy (Rs 2,600 per quintal up from the current Rs 1,750) and guaranteed monthly income,” he added.