Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will never accept Bharat Ratna or any other award for his father Biju Patnaik in return for any election or political alliance with the BJP, his close associate and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader V K Pandian has said. The former IAS officer, who has worked in Odisha for over 25 years, including as private secretary to the chief minister, also hit out at the central ministers from the state for having never spoken about the highest civilian award for the ‘Pride of Odisha’ and inspiration for every Odiya, Biju Patnaik.
“One of the biggest identities for Odisha is the courage and valour shown by Biju Babu. If you see two Odiyas in any part of the world if they speak about Odisha, they will end up speaking about Biju Babu,” Pandian told PTI in an interview here.
“They will either have tears or they will have emotions. That is the connect Biju Patnaik has with the people of Odisha. He was a freedom fighter, he has done so much for the country and the state. He is the architect of modern Odisha,” he added.
Pandian said Biju Patnaik has been honoured by Indonesia and the UK with great civilian honours but the Government of India has not done it.
“We have seen how many people have been given Bharat Ratna. With due regard to all of them, I have nothing against any of them, they all have made great contributions but this entire race, the people of Odisha look up to Biju Patnaik with great inspiration,” he said.
“He is not a person in Odisha, he is a phenomenon here. How can we insult a person like Biju Babu by not giving Bharat Ratna for so many years,” Pandian said.
He hit out at the BJP for talking about Odiya pride and Odiya Asmita without thinking of Biju Patnaik.
“There is a central minister from here and there have been other central ministers from Odisha in the NDA government, but have they ever spoken about it,” he said in an apparent jibe at Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“Let’s think of him as a freedom fighter and let’s honour him. He has been an inspiration for generations of Odiyas. When they talk about Biju Patnaik, people of Odisha walk two inches taller, that’s the kind of inspiration he has been. Can’t they recognise this and respect this?” Pandian asked.
He accused the BJP of talking about Odiya Asmita, Odisha’s culture and Odiya pride only for elections and said the people do understand and see through this.
Asked if he thinks that Biju Patnaik, a former chief minister of Odisha, would have been conferred with the Bharat Ratna if the BJD had allied with the BJP as it happened with some other parties, Pandian said, “I don’t think Naveen Babu would have been happy about it.”
“You may remember, in 2019, Gita Mehta, the great writer, she is no more now, she was awarded Padma Shri for her contributions in her own field and in her own right. But she refused it,” he said, referring to Naveen Patnaik’s elder sister.
“With due regards and through a nicely written letter, she said her brother was in a political party and he was fighting an election and it may not be the right time for her to accept it. She said kindly don’t insist for me to accept it. That is the kind of pedigree Naveen Babu comes from,” Pandian said.
“He will be the last person to trade the valour of Odiya pride for an award. He won’t accept any award as part of an election or political alliance,” he added.
Narrating an old incident, Pandian said there is a ‘Swarg Dwar’ in Puri, where most Hindus want their last rites to be done as there is a strong belief that if your last rites are done there, you go to heaven.
He said, “Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik decided to expand and renovate this Swarg Dwar because it had become congested and a plan was made, but when it was shown to him, one corner of the Swarg Dwar was left out.”
“I was there showing the plan to him and he asked me why this corner was left out. I told him this was the place where Biju Babu’s samadhi was there and, therefore, we would leave this place and take the rest of the place for the expansion and renovation work,” he said.
“Naveen Babu looked into my eyes and said Biju Babu lives in the hearts of people and not in some stones somewhere and please remove it. I said there might be a law and order situation if we remove Biju Babu’s samadhi. He said do it early in the morning and when nobody knows,” Pandian said.
He said that the chief minister further told him that he knows the emotions of the people but he wants the people of Odisha to have a proper place for performing last rites and that Biju Babu or his samadhi should not come in between.
“Even Biju Babu would be very happy to sacrifice everything for the people of Odisha, whether he is alive or dead,” Pandian quoted the chief minister as having told him.
“That is the commitment of Naveen Babu and his family to Odisha. That is why he has such a strong connect with the people of Odisha. No other political leader or family of a political leader would have ever done this,” he said.
“There are so many states where people fight for keeping samadhis in prominent places so that their legacy continues and here is a person, a chief minister, who did something like this,” Pandian said.
This was despite Biju Patnaik being the tallest person of Odisha, a great leader and architect of modern Odisha, he said.
“Still, Naveen Patnaik asked us to remove his father’s samadhi for the benefit of the people. That is their commitment to the state. They don’t get into this pseudo nationalism, regionalism or anything like that for creating false narratives,” he said in an apparent jibe at BJP.
He said that BJP manufactures issues when they do not have any real issue to attack the BJD.
“Whenever BJP is weak, they start raising either nationalism, regionalism or religion. That’s been their political strategy,” he alleged.
Pandian said Odiya got classical language status because of Naveen Patnaik’s persistent efforts and it was done during the UPA government in February 2014.
He said that after May 2014, there has been an NDA government. in these 10 years, the NDA government has not sanctioned a single rupee for the promotion of a classical language enlisted by the Government of India”.
“At the same time, they have given thousand-odd crores of rupees for Sanskrit, they have given 100 plus crore for two-three other languages including Telugu and Tamil. I think there are one or two more languages. What wrong people of Odisha have done? Why did you declare Odiya as a classical language and thereafter forget about it,” he added.
Pandian further said Odishi is a great art form, has great roots and is celebrated throughout the world.
“Cutting across countries, people want to learn Odishi dance. Our chief minister has written twice to the central government asking them to list it as a classical art form as that will give it that gravitas and visibility that is much needed. Both times, the same government which talks about Odiya culture has rejected it,” he said.
