Naveen's BJD in turmoil: Leader calls CM 'mentally dull', gets the sack

Bhubaneswar: The battle of attrition in Odisha’s ruling party, which had been a matter of speculative stories in the local media and salacious gossip in bazaar talk so far, suddenly acquired an authentic ring to it on Saturday when Prafulla Ghadai, former finance minister who was the de facto No 2 in the Naveen Patnaik government only two years ago, described Naveen as “physically and mentally dull”. He has been expelled from the BJD for his outburst.

In an explosive interview to a leading Odia daily, excerpts of which were published on the front page of the newspaper on Saturday, the seven-time MLA went where no one in the BJD had gone before – at least not while he was still in the party. The Sukinda strongman said Naveen had become ‘physically and mentally dull’ and was completely under the grip of ‘KPPP’ (the ‘Gang of Four’ comprising Rajya Sabha MP Kalpataru Das, the chief minister’s all powerful private secretary Karthikeyan Pandian, Triveni Earthmovers head Prabhakaran and Puri MP Pinaki Mishra). For good measure, he also described Naveen as a ‘wonder’ in Indian politics, who rules the state through intrigue, subterfuge and ruthless demolition of opponents using means fair and foul. He made it worse by refusing to deny the comments he had allegedly made. Barely hours after this outburst, the inevitable happened when Naveen announced Ghadai’s expulsion without going through the nicety of a show cause notice or even giving him an opportunity to explain his position in person.

Ghadai, among the senior most leaders in the party, has been sulking ever since he was thrown out of the cabinet for his alleged role in the failed coup led by Naveen’s former ‘margadarshak’ Pyari Mohan Mohapatra in May 2012. But his sulk had grown into downright anger after he was denied a BJD ticket from Sukinda, his home turf. Though he did make the odd statement that caused minor irritation to the party leader earlier too, this was the first time when he hit Naveen where it hurt the most.

While Ghadai’s outburst was too blasphemous to be glossed over, the speed at which the axe fell on him suggested that Naveen intended it as a warning to the other members of the sulking old guard, which has been completely sidelined in Naveen’s new scheme of things – some, like Ghadai, before the elections through denial of the party ticket and others after the elections through denial of a ministerial berth.

At a time when Naveen, perhaps for the first time in his uninterrupted, 14-year long reign, is in serious danger of losing his veneer of probity courtesy the damaging revelations that have come to the fore in the course of the ongoing CBI probe into the multi-thousand crore chit fund scam and the CAG report on the massive land scam that has put his entire government in the dock, an upheaval within the party is the last thing the BJD boss wanted.

Much as he would like the Ghadai episode to be a one-off incident that can be quickly put behind, the churning within the party shows no signs of abating in a hurry. No matter how loudly BJD leaders proclaim their loyalty to the supremo, there is no denying the fact that new equations are being forged and fresh realignment of forces taking place within the party. The ranks of the disgruntled are swelling by the day and it is not as if the 70 plus brigade is the only section in the party peeved at Naveen’s autocratic style of functioning. The disaffected are convinced that Naveen is currently at his most vulnerable – a bit like an ageing lion which has lost its roar – and are waiting for the right time to strike.

The fact that Naveen, who has built quite a reputation for banishing party leaders and ministers into oblivion at the first hint of corruption or serious misdemeanour, is unable to act against those in his party and government against whom credible – and even irrefutable – evidence of wrong doing has surfaced in the recent past has further emboldened the tribe of the disaffected.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra put it evocatively when he likened, in the aftermath of the expulsion of Ghadai on Saturday, the upheaval within the ruling party to the beginning of the disintegration of the ‘Jadu Vansh’.

Mishra could well be day-dreaming. If Naveen’s track is anything to go by, he can still pull it off from the brink, as he did after the failed midnight coup on 29 May 2012, and emerge the stronger for it.

But there are two factors that are working against him in this round of the battle of attrition. For one thing, his squeaky clean image that has sustained him all these years has been considerably sullied in the recent past (with the distinct possibility of more muck sticking to his spotless white kurta in the near future). For another, without anyone left either in the party or in the bureaucracy to confide in and conspire with, Naveen has to fight his battle all by himself.