Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, May 21, 2015 :

“I came, I saw, I conquered’—-Julius Caesar

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have done exactly what Julius Ceaser had penned in a letter to a friend back in Rome after he fought a rather short war with Pharnaces II of Pontus in the city of Zela, now known as Zile in the country Turkey, in the year 47 B.C.

Naveen came to Odisha in April 1997, when his father died and he had to step into his political shoes. Ever since he decided to do something, saw how hard it would be to learn, learned it despite the challenges and never looked back.

Surviving in the Byzantine world of Orissa’s politics is no joke. He not only survived, but also proved his political astuteness by winning the assembly polls for fourth consecutive term with record margin despite creating political foes from his once close associates.

He just completed one year of his fourth term on Thursday. However, Naveen, who has so far remained invincible in the political arena since his entry into active politics, today presents a picture of a man besieged and a pale shadow of the invincible man he was at the start of his fourth successive term. Scores of scams and scandals have virtually cast a shadow over his peerless political career.

With his most trusted lieutenants causing him the biggest embarrassment with their dubious role in the chit fund and land scams, Naveen suddenly finds himself in a sort of moral trial and error.

Now questions are raised over the chief minister’s silence over the issue and the so-called “Mr Clean Image”. A 2011 photograph shows him and other top partymen at the launch of a news channel – owned by Seashore Group – along with its owner Prashant Das who was arrested last year for allegedly running one of the biggest chit fund operations in the state. In a January 2013 photograph, Ranjan Das is seen with senior BJD leaders Kalpataru Das and Pravat Tripathy during the nomination of Mr Patnaik as Biju Janata Dal president.

The most direct link to Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the massive scam is when Naveen Patnaik’s personal aide Saroj Sahoo deposed before the CBI and the arrest of a top party leader and legislator, Pravat Tripathy and Mayurbhanj MP Rama Chandra Hansdah.

The CBI has already claimed that lakhs of rupees were transferred from the account of Naveen’s personal assistant Saroj Kumar Sahoo to BJD MLAs and politicians between 2009 and 2012. “While scanning the bank accounts of Sahoo, we found funds were transferred to the accounts of some party leaders”, a CBI officer said.

Pravat Tripathy, a key Naveen Patnaik aide and former chief whip of the BJD was in jail after prolonged questioning by the CBI over his chit fund connections. Mr Tripathy has been accused of using his clout as the chairman of the Odisha State Cooperative Union between 2006-2011 to put his aide Ranjan Das, the founder of two big chit fund companies and now under arrest, as a director in the Union. Both these men are understood to have received huge bribes to get big chit fund companies like Artha Tatwa to register as cooperative societies with the government.

Naveen may have managed to wriggle out of the chit fund quagmire with some deft political deal with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. But the subsequent the land scam that exploded forcing him to put up Task Force headed by Taradatt. Tatadatt panel has already exposed the nexus and what has been the worst-kept secret in the government: ruling party politicians, their favoured bureaucrats and other people with clout in the BJD had wrested prime land and houses in the Twin City of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack after throwing all rules and norms out of the window.

Naveen’s loss of moral authority following the series of scams involving his government and his party has overtaken whatever achievement his government had done in the last one year.