On Monday, senior BJD leader and Athagarh MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain became the latest voice of dissent after a letter he wrote to Patnaik became public. In the strongly worded letter, Swain, an eight-time MLA, urged the party chief to not let a few individuals “hijack the BJD and distort the social fabric or deepen regional imbalance”.
Expressing concerns over the functioning of the party, Swain called for structural reforms within the BJD. “This is a time to reclaim our ideological legacy,” Swain wrote in his letter, which ThePrint has seen.
Speaking to ThePrint Sunday, Nrusingha Sahu said he was going to stand by what he said. He said that six days before the hotel meeting, senior leaders met Patnaik and expressed concerns about the party’s U-turn on the waqf bill, which the Rajya Sabha passed 4 April.
“Let us wait and see what the party chief decides [to do about it],” Nrusingha Sahu added.
“For 24 years, when Naveen Patnaik was in power, none of the leaders dared to question him. But now, they are asking the party chief to make his stand clear—be it on the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025, or the role of his trusted aide V.K. Pandian,” the senior leader quoted previously—a former minister in the Patnaik cabinet—said on the condition of anonymity while speaking to ThePrint.
A 2000-batch IAS officer, Pandian served as private secretary to Patnaik for over two decades. He took voluntary retirement to join BJD in November 2023 but announced his withdrawal from politics after the party lost the 2024 elections.
In the 2024 assembly election, BJD won 51 of the 147 seats, while BJP won 78 and formed the government under Mohan Charan Majhi. Post-election, three Independent MLAs joined BJP, taking its tally to 81.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, party’s humiliation was starker, . Of the 21 seats in Odisha, it could not win even one. The BJP won 20 seats while the Congress bagged one.
No ‘clarity’ on party line
Senior leaders such as Rajya Sabha MP Debashish Samantaray, former minister Pratap Jena, and six-time MLAs Prafulla Samal and Badri Patra have openly criticised the BJD’s flip-flop on the waqf bill, worsening the BJD crisis.
Party chief Naveen Patnaik had opposed the bill thrice, but when it came up for voting in the Rajya Sabha last month, BJD MP Sasmit Patra took to social media, urging the party MPs in the Upper House to “exercise their conscience” while voting. After the bill’s passage, several senior BJD leaders have met Patnaik multiple times at his residence, expressing concerns over the last-moment change in stance.
A BJD leader, who had met Patnaik on the issue, told ThePrint that the leaders asked the party president to make his stand clear—not only on the waqf bill but also on the party line now—as the dust settles on the BJD’s Opposition position after its 24-year reign in Odisha.
Discussing the BJD crisis, the leader, who did not wish to be named, said, “Internally, many of us have started asking—what does the BJD stand for? Both the leaders and party workers are confused. Are we with the BJP, or are we fighting it? Will we continue our policy to remain equidistant from the BJP and the Congress?”
With the BJD organisational polls currently underway, it is likely that Naveen Patnaik will be re-appointed party president in five days—on 19 April. Against this backdrop, the chorus for a clear direction has grown louder within the party.
Senior BJD leaders said that the party is now staring at one of its biggest challenges—navigating the political space as the Opposition party. Leaders are waiting to hear Patnaik on the way forward for the party after his possible election to the chief post.
“The picture will get clear very soon,” Nrusingha Sahu said.
Ashok Panda, a senior BJD leader and former minister in the Patnaik government, told ThePrint, “There is no clarity right now. But the time has come for the party to come out with a clear narrative on its political ideology and stand vis-a-vis other political parties.”
About the BJD crisis, Panda said that since the party’s humiliating defeat last year, the party cadre had been feeling disappointed.
He said that the party policy to date had been to “maintain equidistance” from the national parties and “take decisions on major political issues on merit, keeping in view Odisha’s interest”. “BJD came to power on an anti-Congress plank. But after a couple of years, the party pronounced it would be equidistant from both the BJP and the Congress,” Panda said.
Speaking to ThePrint, BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty denied the BJD crisis and that senior leaders had posed questions to Naveen Patnaik. “Sankha Bhawan, the party headquarters, has enough space for our party members to discuss issues and deliberate in the larger interest of the party. Members should meet and discuss at Sankha Bhawan. The leaders and workers are happy with that diktat, and now, everyone is happy about it.”
On the party’s waqf bill flip-flop, Mohanty said that “Naveen babu” was the only leader in the country to meet minority leaders after the bill became an Act. “He has reasserted that we continue with our secular ideals,” Mohanty said, adding that the BJD policy to support only issues, not parties, would continue.
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Call for implementing reforms
Soon after its defeat in the Odisha assembly and Lok Sabha elections last year, the BJD, in a bid to figure out what would restore the confidence of the cadre and re-organise the party, constituted an advisory committee with 17 of its senior leaders.
According to three senior party leaders who did not want to be named, to tide over the BJD crisis, the committee prepared a six-point charter of reforms. Among the recommendations is that the party should constitute a parliamentary board headed by the party president. The parliamentary board, it suggested, should make all the key decisions.
“The BJD never had a parliamentary board. We had a political advisory committee but disbanded it in 2003-04. Since then, Patnaik alone has made all the decisions. As organisational elections are underway, we recommended setting up a parliamentary board,” said a senior leader, who was part of the committee, on the condition of anonymity.
Another recommendation of the panel is a disciplinary committee. “BJD does not have a disciplinary committee to date,” the leader quoted above said.
According to him, the third recommendation is that the BJD should spell out clearly to its cadre what the party stands for. “These were among the main recommendations”.
The 17-member advisory committee gave the charter to Naveen Patnaik nearly four months ago but had not heard from him since, the three leaders told ThePrint.
At the meeting that senior leaders had at Patnaik’s residence on 4 April, after the waqf controversy broke out, some of the senior leaders enquired about the fate of the charter.
“We told him that the charter needed implementation. The party’s larger interest is at stake. We are waiting for a response,” a second BJD leader said.
Resentment against Pandian
As BJD looks to complete a year in the Opposition position in June, the role of Naveen Patnaik’s aide V.K. Pandian continues to rile leaders up. Post-defeat, Pandian announced his resignation, but senior leaders claimed he continued to interfere in party affairs.
Many party leaders, who have openly criticised the BJD’s U-turn on the waqf bill, have hinted at Pandian’s behind-the-scenes role.
BJD Rajya Sabha MP Debashish Samantaray, who abstained from voting on the bill, has questioned Pandian’s role in party decision-making.
Exacerbating the BJD crisis, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Muzibulla Khan, who voted against the bill, protested the party’s U-turn with his supporters outside Patnaik’s residence as he also questioned Pandian’s role. At the protest, Khan demanded Patnaik clarify his stand on the bill while his supporters waved placards, reading “Go back, Pandian”.
A section of leaders and party workers have also expressed their displeasure over Patnaik’s recent statements to the media, defending Pandian. “There is a growing anger against him [Pandian],” a party MLA told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity.
“The party president will have to take a decision in this matter soon, in the larger interest of the party. BJD’s survival is at stake here,” the MLA said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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