Tussle To Appropriate Biju Patnaik’s Legacy?

In Odisha a newer kind of political battle is brewing between Naveen Patnaik’s BJD and former members of his party over Biju Patnaik’s death anniversary celebration. The sidelined turncoat ex-BJD leaders like Bijoy Mohapatra (known as super chief minister, founder BJD), Dilip Ray (former Union Minister and BJD founder), independent Rajya Sabha MP Prabhat Tripathy, former BJD MLA, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, former BJD MP, Prasanna Patasani have come together and formed a new platform called ‘Odisha Nagarik Manch’(ONM). Their objective seems to be focussed on appropriating Biju Patnaik’s legacy taking their position as “original Biju followers” but they qualify it saying “ONM as of now is a non-political platform”. Political commentators say this political experiment coming from Bijoy Mohapatra, Dilip Ray and others could gather steam if this new group could prevail upon BJP high command to confer Bharat Ratna to the late Biju Patnaik. Otherwise, the general public say it’s an academic exercise at best because the Biju era politicians like Bijoy Mohapatra, Djlip Ray who are seen as the original mastermind face the challenge of proving their relevance to the new generation.