Orissa’s reclusive enigma looks set for an election victory

Posted by: John Elliott | April 23, 2009

Orissa’s reclusive enigma looks set for an election victory

img_3682_edited1 BHUBANESHWAR, ORISSA: The helicopter landed in one of the most desolate and poorest parts Orissa’s Puri constituency in the usual swirl of anti-social blinding dust that heralds the arrival of top politicians on India’s general election trail. But that did nothing to deter the enthusiastic welcome of the crowds gathered to see their chief minister at Rulango in Dalang on Monday evening – and the man who alighted from the aircraft had none of the arrogant power-strutting swagger of many Indian politicians.

Instead, Naveen Patnaik, the 62-year old chief minister of Orissa, emerged as a very slightly stooping man with a friendly smile but sometimes stern eyes, who carefully kept those around him at a distance, but did so shyly without causing offence.

img_3699_edited His smile was genuine as he went to the platform and read the first part of his speech in the local Orya language, which he cannot speak easily, and then, apologising, turned to his more comfortable Hindi. His manner was that of a kindly headmaster addressing an end of term pupils’ meeting as he spelt out his government’s successes, rarely raising his voice but receiving cheers at all the right moments.

“Nice to see you again”, he said to me as he walked away from the platform. I asked what his main issues were. “He’ll tell you,” he replied, waving at the agent of Pinaki Misra, the local parliamentary candidate. I reckoned that was one of the longest interviews Patnaik has given to a foreign correspondent. He is famous for saying little and rarely meeting journalists – and indeed rarely meeting anyone outside his small inner political circle. Almost a recluse in Bhubaneswar, he socialises little and reportedly even vets guest lists when he spends evenings with his two closest political friends and allies, member of parliament Jay Panda and Orissa minister A.U.Singh Deo.

Once a friend of Jacqueline Onassis and Mick Jagger, Patnaik unexpectedly abandoned a grand and exclusive international jet setting life-style for Orissa politics after the death 12 years ago of his father, Biju Patnaik, a popular politician and former chief minister. Known to his friends as Pappu, he did not seem to have the grit to remain in politics for long. Yet he now has a chance of breaking records by winning a third successive term as Orissa’s chief minister, having managed to carve out an image that appeals to the electorate, even though the state has sunk while he has been in power to become India’s poorest with 39.9% of the people below the poverty line. That is worse, amazingly, even than Bihar.

Searching for issues

I decided to come to Orissa to write about India’s general election and the state’s assembly election (the second and final stage of voting takes place today) because I thought the sleepy low-performing state was full of urgent social and other election issues.

My list included tribal clashes last year with attacks and killings of Christians, violent demonstrations and deaths over the use of agricultural and tribal land for big steel and other projects such as those planned by Posco, Tata and L.N.Mittal, plus a growing Naxalite threat (with 29 people killed on Orissa’s first polling day last week). Also on my list of course was Patnaik, who unexpectedly broke his Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party’s 11-year alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last month and, to quote a journalist friend, “seems to have the state in his grip”.

That seemed a basket of important subjects – religion, land, lawlessness, dynasty, and coalitions – till I spoke to a friend in Bhubaneshwar and asked what the issues were. “Rice politics”, he replied, explaining that much of Patnaik’s popularity is based on having reduced rice to Rs2 a kilo for roughly half the state’s 37m population. “With rice, BJD schemes to get third-time lucky,” said a newspaper headline. Now Congress and the BJP have been promising to reduce that to Rs1.

It is of course, I thought, the same the world over. Between elections, all sorts of issues grab public and political attention, but when it comes to the time to vote in the next government, it is the price of food in the shops that counts. Yet when I arrived in Orissa I discovered that even though rice is perhaps the determining factor for many of the poor, there are few policy clashes. “The election is being fought without any issues,” says Sudhir Pattnaik, editor of Samadrushi, an Orya magazine. “There’s no difference between the parties”.

The BJP has certainly lost ground because of the anti-Christian riots at Kandhamal last August, with thousands of Christians still sheltering in relief camps, but that is being offset to some extent by criticism of the way Patnaik dumped the BJP.

Past social unrest over big projects does not seem to be an issue, except in the localities affected. Abhaya Sahu, the CPI official who led the anti-Posco movement, has been in jail since last October but no one seems concerned, even though the CPI has a seat-adjustment deal with the BJD. And the Naxalite attacks seem to be tolerated, even though the government has allowed the Maoist influence to stretch to 18 districts in recent years.

Instead, the major focus is on Patnaik and whether he can survive, and maintain his party’s present in India’s parliament, without the BJP. He has made many enemies because, behind the kindly exterior, he can be a brutal operator and has sacked at least ten ministers and a clutch of senior bureaucrats, sometimes for corruption or other misdemeanours.

Despite the need to collect funds on big projects to fund the BJD – and reports of links with some leading businessmen planning big projects – these sackings have enabled Patnaik to build something of a corruption-free image among the poor. I asked Pyarimohan Mohapatra, a former top bureaucrat who is Patnaik’s main adviser, how they managed to accumulate party finances. “We don’t ask for donations but I will say thank you if [someone] comes and offers at the time of elections,” he replied, smiling. He claimed this approach had drawn businessmen to the state.

However, many projects have not gone ahead. A total of some 50 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) have been signed by the BJD-led coalition for projects involving iron ore and steel, bauxite and aluminium, and ports, but what would have been India’s largest foreign investments – by Posco and Mittal – are stalled by government delays and, in Mittal’s case, by the company deferring its plans. Tata has also not gone ahead, though two other Indian steel groups – Bhushan and Jindal – are beginning projects. Mohapatra denies this shows failings by the government, and also points to improved rural and village roads, expanded irrigation, a growing horticulture business, and other rural schemes to show that the government has had successes.

In the assembly, the BJD currently has 61 seats, supported till last month by the BJP’s 32, with Congress’s 38 leading the opposition. Observers expect the BJD figure to go down because of the break from the BJP, and the consequential split vote that could benefit Congress.

Mohapatra however forecasts the BJD will go up to an astonishing 85-93, reducing the BJP to 12-14. That is partly based on an opinion poll he commissioned before the split which showed that 79% of those voting for the BJD-BJP alliance in 2004 were really supporting the BJD and only 21% the BJP. This gave Patnaik the confidence to break away when the BJP and its allied Sangh Parivar organisations became a political embarrassment, after the Kandhamal riots.

In the outgoing Delhi parliament, the BJD has 11 MPs while the BJP has seven from the state and Congress three. Mohapatra forecasts the BJD will go up to 13 or 14 which will make it a significant though maybe not a major player in coalition forming. Mohapatra says the BJD will not support any government led by either Congress (for historic reasons) or the BJP, and will insist on pro-Orissa policies, notably an agreement to boost extremely low royalties paid to the state for mining its high-grade iron ore.

Congress has been running a badly organised campaign, and the BJP seems to be on the back foot, which increases the probability that the BJD will get at least somewhere near Mohapatra’s forecasts, giving Patnaik a third successive term in office. If however he does confound his critics and becomes chief minister again, he will be under pressure to do more than he has in the past to lift the state from the bottom of India’s poverty league.

This is a slightly extended and illustrated (and unedited) version of an article in Mint, an Indian daily business newspaper – see http://www.livemint.com/2009/04/23003734/Patnaik8217s-fortunes-remai.html

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Posted in India, India elections, India general election, Lakshmi Mittal, Orissa, Posco, Tata | Tags: A.U.Singh Deo, Abhaya Sahu, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bhubaneshwar, Bhubaneswar, Bhushan, Biju Patnaik, BJD, BJP, Congress Party, CPI, India general election, Jay Panda, Jindal, Kandhamal, L.N.Mittal, Naveen Patnaik, Naxalite Biju Janata Dal, Orissa, Orissa chief minister, Orissa poverty, Orisssa Christians, Pappu Patnaik, Pinaki Misra, Posco, Puri, Pyarimohan Mohapatra, Samadrushi magazine, Sudhir Pattnaik, Tata

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