By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, November 4, 2025: A story doing the rounds of Bhubaneswar is that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) will survive as long as Pappu is alive and continues its bonhomie with the Bharatiya Janata Party (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).

Unlike his dare devil father late Biju Patnaik; Naveen does not want to take any risk and is playing on safer ground so that he does not land up in jail like former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Chattisgarh CM Hemant Soren. Both Kejriwal and Soren are not afraid of PM Modi and always called a spade a spade. The outcome was for everyone to see. They had to spend a couple of months in jail with Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) prosecuting them on several charges. However, Naveen preferred to lie low and not antagonize his “friend” Narendra Modi. That suits the ruling BJP which ended an uninterrupted reign of 24-plus years—missing Pawan Chamling’s record of being India’s longest-serving chief minister (of Sikkim) by a whisker.

There are instances galore. The latest example is the party MPs’ abstention from voting in the vice-presidential elections as part of its policy of “maintaining an equal distance” from both the BJP-led NDA and Congress-led INDIA bloc at the national level. Not long back, the open complaint by Rajya Sabha MP Muzibulla Khan to Naveen Patnaik against the floor leader Sasmit Patra over what is being seen as an ambiguous and last-minute shift in stance on the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, cleared by both houses of Parliament. Khan, popularly known as ‘Munna’ among peers, has expressed deep dissatisfaction over what he described as lack of clarity and coordination within the party on the Waqf Bill.

In fact, the BJD had opposed the Bill, aligning itself with Opposition and minority voices that feared that the proposed legislation would infringe on the autonomy and functioning of Waqf boards. But shortly before the Bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, the party abruptly changed its position, refraining from issuing an official whip and allowing its MPs to vote according to their personal discretion.

The U-turn sparked off huge confusion among BJD parliamentarians. Added to it, Patra, a Christian, had shown a clear inclination towards supporting the bill due to a call by the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC). Critics argue that the KCBC’s position was determined by several churches in Kerala allegedly being located on Waqf land. Patra seems to have received the green light to not issue a whip from V.K. Pandian, Patnaik’s long-time bureaucrat-turned-political aide.

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.

The mining scam has been hushed up for now thanks to the rapprochement between former chief minister and prime minister Narendra Modi on conditions of ‘give and take’. Naveen even to-day has this compulsion and hence is not allowing the BJD to be aggressive. People strongly believe that despite having retreated after the BJD’s Odisha assembly election debacle last year, Pandian continues to exert control from behind the scenes and it has deeply unsettled many in the party. While Pandian has withdrawn from public life, wife Sujata Karthikeyan, another senior bureaucrat, opted for voluntary retirement. Yet, allegations of his continued influence persist, feeding into the narrative of backroom politics in the BJD. Karma comes full circle for Naveen & Pandian as Waqf controversy signals beginning of BJD’s decline.

Way back in 2008, BJD severed ties with BJP in 2008 after the Kandhamal riots in the aftermath of the assassination of Hindu leader, Swami Laxmananand and Naveen almost emerged as the politically secular leader across the county. The poll outcomes between 2009 and 2016 show a period of sustained bitterness between the two parties, in which the BJP tasted defeat. However, after BJP’s 2014 election victory and formation of Modi-led NDA government in Delhi, the saffron party saw a ray of hope in toppling the Naveen regime, notwithstanding the fact that BJD showcased a stunning performance in 2014 elections in the polls for both the state assembly and the Lok Sabha.

In 2016, when the CBI nabbed a close aide of Naveen Patnaik operating from Naveen Nivas, that the BJD suddenly became cooperative. When CBI investigation into the widespread swindling of public money through mushrooming chit funds in Odisha reached Naveen Niwas, it created quite a flutter in the national arena threatening to defame the nearly two decades old unblemished political journey of Naveen Patnaik. The move paved the way for BJP to a massive victory in 2017 Panchayat and Urban Local Body elections.

This development led to the romance between BJD and BJP. Nomination of Ashwini Vaishnaw to Rajya Sabha election, first as a BJD candidate and then as BJP candidate was a clear evidence of the narrowing down of the gap between these two parties. CBI’s probe into one of Naveen’s close associates was pushed to the back burner and Pandian grew in prominence both in the party and in the state government much to the annoyance of BJD leaders. The more Pandian grew into prominence, the more was the gain of BJP in state politics.

The results of 2024 elections stunned everyone in both these parties as well as the voters. Naveen 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. But the BJD chief would not risk a consequence like in Jharkhand or Delhi where two Chief Ministers were put in jail.