Odisha: Naveen Patnaik Hits Back at Modi’s ‘Odiya Asmita’ Narrative Ahead of Voting on May 13

In the past two days, politics in Odisha has reached a combative stage during the second visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to campaign for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, to be held on May 13.

Right from the road show in Bhubaneswar to rallies in parts of Western Odisha, the Prime Minister appeared to be in a sabre-rattling mood to take on the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in Odisha, with all the caustic oratory at his command. 

 Although in his speeches from Bhubaneswar to Kandhamal, Bargarh and Bolangir, Modi was found nearly parroting the same points, with the addition of a few theatrics like ‘Odiya Asmita' by touching the feet of some old women on the stage.

 This is the first time any Prime Minister has visited a state like Odisha twice before the date of announcements of polls, and twice after the announcement.

 Although it can be construed as an over assessment of the self when Modi announced the date of swearing in of a BJP government in Odisha on June 10, some political observers said it sounded more like “self-ridicule”.

 “It is a bit too much when a person of PM’s stature announces the swearing in date even before the voting, let alone the declaration of results. This obviously does not behove his position” Rabi Das, a veteran journalist and political analyst, told this writer.

Patnaik Takes the Bull by the Horn

 For the first time, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, through a video address that went viral on social media, reminded the Prime Minister of how the latter had emasculated the truth one by one, going back on the promises he made in the 2014 and 2019 l elections.

Patnaik asked Modi to refresh his memory when he had promised to create two crore jobs annually for youths, reduce the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG prices, In the video, the BJD leader, a former ally of the BJP, also made a categorical attack on the Prime Minister for his failure to give recognition to Odia language, and give a classical tag to dance forms of Odisha, despite repeated requests from the Odisha government.

 In fact, Patnaik sounded a veiled threat to Modi asking him to stop day-dreaming of coming to power in Odisha for the next 10 years.

 While Modi was at his acerbic best to dub the BJD supremo, implying that he had become administratively “parasitic” by outsourcing the entire ruling machinery to a handful of bureaucrats, headed by one who impersonates as the “super chief minister” of Odisha.

"This was an apparent swipe at IAS-turned-BJD leader V K Pandian, who is ubiquitous as Patnaik’s shadow everywhere," noted Das.     

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha.