Once Invincible BJD in Disarray

Notwithstanding BJD's narrow defeat in last election and it fetching more votes than BJP, its president Naveen Patnaik seems to be a reluctant chief to guide the party on a desired mode, says Nageshwar Patnaik

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A story doing the rounds of Bhubaneswar is that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) will survive as long as Pappu is alive and after that the regional party will collapse like a house of cards.

Some BJD leaders would jump to Congress and some to BJP. That just about sums up the assessment of the people about the longest surviving regional party of the state launched by 78-year old Naveen Patnaik (fondly referred to as 'Pappu' by his close friends).

He blamed the party's failure to effectively counter the saffron party's false narrative. He underscored the need to be aggressive in exposing the BJP's false narrative especially on social media.

Will Pappu quit or fight back? Perhaps not.

Pappu, however, knows that being aggressive could land him in trouble. The BJD chief would not risk a consequence like in Jharkhand or Delhi where two Chief Ministers were put in jail. When the party was in power two swords were hanging on Naveen Patnaik's head -- a Ponzi scam and mining scam -- and the Enforcement Directorate or ED on one occasion even reached near the gates of Navin Niwas to apprehend a trusted lieutenant of Patnaik, Saroj Sahoo, for his alleged role in the Ponzi scam.