BJD leader VK Pandian has said that he will be the heir and successor to all his values of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and he cherishes his identity as an aide who “works for Naveen Patnaik and delivers”.
In an interview with ANI, Pandian said that Naveen Patnaik is contesting from two constituencies in the assembly polls even as people of the state want him to contest from all the assembly seats. He said the Chief Minister selects one extra constituency every time.
Asked if it is correct to assume that he will be the political heir to Naveen Patnaik, Pandian, a bureaucrat-turned-politician, said he gets love and affection from people because of his present identity.
“No, I will be the heir, the successor to all his values as I have always stood. His integrity, his commitment, his hard work, his absolute thinking about empowering the people of Odisha – that is what I would succeed him as. My identity in Odisha is ‘he works for Naveen Patnaik and he delivers.’ That is the identity which I cherish. The love and affection that I get from people is because of that identity,” he said.
Naveen Patnaik is contesting from the Kantabanji assembly constituency in Western Odisha apart from his traditional Hinjili seat in this year’s assembly polls.
Pandian said Patnaik also fought from Bijepur in the 2019 assembly polls and won with a landslide majority. He said the Chief Minister took major initiatives in agriculture to develop the area.
“He did something extraordinary in the last term for that constituency. In three years he created 30-40,00 acres of irrigation…,” he said.
Pandian said this time the Chief Minister wants to do similar development works in Kantabanji.
Pandian, who is a close aide of Odisha Chief Minister, expressed confidence that his party will sweep the assembly polls in the state and get more seats compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Pandian targeted the BJP and said if the party declares its CM candidate in the state against Naveen Patnaik, the BJD’s victory will be much larger and the opposition party will not cross single digits.
“I will tell you two scenarios…BJD, under Naveen Babu, is going to sweep the assembly elections and we will get more seats in Lok Sabha elections as well. In case the BJP comes out with a CM face…the victory will be much larger. They will not cross single digit (in number of MLAs),” he said.
He was asked if a historic sixth term can be expected for Naveen Patnaik as Chief Minister in the assembly polls.
Odisha will go for simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls. Lok Sabha and assembly polls in the state will be held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. Naveen Patnaik is seeking to steer the party for a sixth straight term in office in the assembly polls.
Pandian said Congress used to be the main challenger of BJD as an opposition party more than a decade back.
“They (Congress) are in a very sad state of affairs and in many places, BJP is locally fixing with them. There are two Parliamentary constituencies where they are having a fixing – Sambalpur and Bhubaneswar…I am putting it on record, I am saying with all conviction,” Pandian said.
Answering a query about Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of BJD and BJP working together, Pandian said that BJD maintains a level of decency in political discourse and it does not mean that it is collaborating with the party in opposition.
“He(Rahul Gandhi) specifically used the word ‘marriage’. He is a bachelor, he should not be giving advice on marriage and relationships. In political discourse, the Chief Minister’s idea is, his commitment or value system is that one should not cross that decency, that is the value system he has…That doesn’t mean that we are collaborating with the opposite party against whom we are fighting the elections,” Pandian said.
During his visit to Odisha last month, Rahul Gandhi had accused BJD of being in partnership with the BJP.
“They are in a marital relationship,” he said, adding that it can be called marriage or partnership, but the two parties “are together”.