A day after BJD was voted out of power, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik submitted his resignation to Governor Raghubar Das with the charismatic regional satrap narrowly missing the record of longest tenure as CM held by Pawan Kumar Chamling, former CM of Sikkim.

BJD, the party which he headed, lost to the BJP in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Patnaik, who never eyed on pan-India expansion of the party, failed to check the BJP’s electoral juggernaut. Thus it was an end of Patnaik’s 24-long-year eventful and largely clean stint at the helm of governance in Odisha.

The regional party was completely wiped out in the Lok Sabha polls down to zero in the 21 seats it fought. In the 147 seat assembly polls, it fared better 51 seats, which was not enough to prevent BJP with 78 seats to form its maiden government in the coastal State.

Patnaik, a man of few words and widely regarded for upright governance, ruled the State since 2000 and never lost a single election and maintained his invincibility in electoral politics. But this time, he lost to a relatively unknown BJP candidate by over 16,000 votes in Kantabanji seats while winning the traditional Hinjili seat by a narrow margin.

With the BJP firing all artillery and virtually letting loose carpet bombing to electorally unseat him from power for the formation of first-ever saffron Government in the coastal State, and Patnaik, with advancing age and falling health acting to his disadvantage, proved unequal to the blistering onslaught of political opponents.

The defeat, which was on the expected line, has interrupted Patnaik, a shrewd politician and master strategist, becoming Chief Minister for a record 6th term.

Patnaik surpassed West Bengal CM Jyoti Basu last year as the second longest-serving Chief Minister in India. He would have achieved a rare distinction in India’s electoral political history if he had come back to power. He was 74 days away from entering into the record book as longest-serving CM held by Pawan Kumar Chamling, the former CM of Sikkim. Chamling ruled Sikkim for 24 years and 166 days.

This time Patnaik failed to check the resurgent BJP while he did that successfully when the country was swept by the Modi wave in 2014 and 2019. The charisma of Patnaik then was enough to arrest the BJP wave to win the Assembly polls. Political analysts are of the view that Patnaik maintained invincibility over the years on the strength of pro-incumbency and clean image.

This time, strong anti-incumbency was ruling the roost across the State. Patnaik failed to gauge the voter mood for a change. His over dependence on Tamil Nadu-born former bureaucrat and his trusted aide V K Pandian cost him dear, the poll analysts believe.

The public mood for a change could be perceived from the fact that the five-time Chief Minister and two-time union minister Patnaik lost the Assembly polls from Kantabanji seat in western Odisha. The seasoned politician never tasted poll defeat since he ‘reluctantly’ entered into electoral politics in the late nineties.

An ardent lover of art and culture, Patnaik authored three books in English. He is also a passionate lover of books.

After the death of legendary Biju Patnaik (his father), Biju Janata Dal carrying Biju babu’s name was founded on April 17, 1997 to fill the political void created in Odisha following the death of his father. Patnaik, who was settled in Delhi, was roped in to lead the party to cash in on the charisma of his immensely popular father and to defeat the then discredited Congress party. Patnaik was twice the Union Steel Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet in 1998 and 1999 before becoming the Chief Minister of Odisha on March 5, 2000. Since then, his political journey has been largely unchallenged in the State till 4 June 2024.

With the BJD voted out of the power, an uncertain future stares at the regional party particularly given the fact there is remote possibility that Patnaik will fight another election on health-related issues. More than the BJP roaring back to power, the future of the regional party has become the talk of the town. Though Patnaik groomed Pandian (a Tamil) as his successor, the party defeat has punctuated his plan. It remains to be seen how the BJD leaders accept Pandian as second-in-command of the party because of the defeat. Dissent is bound to simmer in the regional party in the coming days, say analysts.