Not part of grand alliance: Patnaik

BHUBANESWAR: Just a day after saying that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) would “take some time” to think about joining the Congressled Mahagathbandhan, the grand alliance of opposition parties, Odisha chief minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik made it clear that BJD “is not a part of it”.

Speaking to reporters at his residence, Naveen Niwas, in Bhubaneswar after returning from his party’s protest in New Delhi for a Minimum Support Price (MRP) of ~2930 per quintal of paddy, Patnaik said his party will continue to stay away from both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. “We continue our policy of equidistance from the BJP and the Congress,” he said on Wednesday.

Patnaik’s comments came more than a fortnight after Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao met him in Bhubaneswar to discuss the possibility of forging a third, non-congress, non-bjp federal front.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Niranjan Patnaik said the BJD chief’s equidistance policy is only for selfpreservation. “BJD not joining the Mahagathbandhan does not bother us. We have always known it as a party of opportunists,” said the PCC chief.

Meanwhile, there is speculation on whether Patnaik might join the Bjp-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), should the latter fail to muster a simple majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticised the Odisha chief minister at a meeting in Odisha’s Jharguda district three months ago, he did not utter a word against Patnaik at more recent public meetings in Khurda and Baripada.

BJP national secretary Suresh Pujari was non-committal about the CM’S latest statement and said that the BJD not joining the Mahagathbandhan made no difference to his party. “Naveen Patnaik works in mysterious ways. Even God would be unsure about his next step. For us, both BJD and Congress are rivals,” he said.

Political analysts are not surprised by Patnaik’s decision. Patnaik’s first assembly election in 2000 was fought on an anti-congress plank since the incumbent in the state government was the Congress. At the time, his BJD allied with the Bjp-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre. But they point out that the Mahagathbandhan’s prospects will be affected if the Odisha CM stays away.

“Without regional stalwarts such as Patnaik, Chandrasekhar Rao or Mamata Banerjee, any grand opposition alliance will be unable to continue for a long time,” said analyst Rabi Das.

Das, however, agrees that Patnaik is unpredictable.