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BY DN Singh
Former chief minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik has yet again come out all cylinders blasting to cross swords with the Narendra Modi dispensation by demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and by implication he has clamored once again ventilating his frustration the way the de-enfranchisement of voters has gone.
Making it louder than any time before through a strong whip Naveen Patnaik directed the Biju Janata Dal Rajya Sabha MPs to join the opposition`s protest march in New Delhi against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, while maintaining that the regional party remains officially independent of the INDIA bloc, reports The Indian Express.
Patnaik maintained a frosty stance demanding the immediate resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, pointing to internal dissent within the Election Commission and calling for a thorough reevaluation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, as per a report in The Hindu.
The BJD stated that the SIR process deliberately complicated voter registration, leading to the deletion of over 20 to 27.5 lakh eligible voters in Odisha also and millions nationwide.
What Equidistance? BJD floor leaders and MPs participated in the October 6, 2026, protest in Delhi as a "responsible opposition," but clarified that the party is neither part of the NDA nor the INDIA bloc, preserving its regional independence.
In earlier occasions when the Zen Z’s protest at Jantar Mantar was at its peak the former chief minister of Odisha had jumped into the Zen Z bandwagon showing full solidarity with the thousands of protesting students who were reportedly subjected to unprecedented police excesses at the protesting site at Jantar Mantar.
But there are lot many questions staring at the BJD leadership for such delayed taking its gloves off while joining the India bloc protest march.
“ Was Patnaik in a slumber of eminence for all those 24 years of political honeymoon with Modi and more so taking a huge break over SIR which has been made the clumsiest ever mockery of people`s fundamental right to vote. Who should decide whom to elect? Instead the SIR created a situation where the CEC would decide who are the people who can vote” said Ritik Pramanik, political commentator.
Marriage of convenience
Its ties with former ally BJP strained since last year, the BJD on Tuesday made an exception to its policy of maintaining equidistant from both the ruling party and the Congress-led Opposition & India bloc. However, Naveen Patnaik-led party joined the INDIA bloc’s protest march in Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the (SIR) of electoral rolls, an Indian Express report said.
Logical Fallacy by Naveen
The logic of equidistance from the Congress-led opposition and the India Bloc appear to be a logical fallacy at this juncture akin to what happened with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee as the latter failed to take a position before the polls there.
In the case of Odisha, the BJP also inflicted a major blow in the Lok Sabha polls the same year as the BJD failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat, a first since the regional party came into existence in 1997. The BJP won 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
“That was an erred war-room policy by the BJD then in complete control of an ex-bureaucrat turned BJD poster boy V K Pandian who allegedly acted as a conduit between Naveen and BJP think-tank Amit Shah to facilitate a walkover in the last Lok Sabha polls. We were all in a state of animated suspension of disbelief and helplessness” rued a senior BJD leader requesting anonymity.
Had the NDA not been able to manage 20 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha then the saffron brigade would not have been in power in 2024.
After committing so many mistakes and avoidable fallacies now Patnaik seems to have woken up when neither he has anything to lose politically nor the age on his side.
BJD was at last decimated in Odisha politics like other regional political outfits elsewhere in the country. A heavy price that Patnaik had to pay for proxy in politics and refusing to learn from similar instances
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