Print Email to Friend| From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 24, Dated 16 June 2012

CURRENT AFFAIRS   ODISHA

UPCLOSE: PYARIMOHAN MOHAPATRA, 72

Odisha’s Chanakya Runs Out of Luck

Pyarimohan Mohapatra wielded immense power under three chief ministers of the state. But this time, he bit off more than he could chew, says Bibhuti Pati

The mastermind Mohapatra played a big part in BJD’s rise Photo: Tikan Mishra ALSO READ Lord Juggernaut Calling Delhi The Solitary Reaper Naveen back with a footnote

FOR THE past few months, insiders in the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) had been predicting a clash between Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and party strongman and Rajya Sabha MP Pyarimohan Mohapatra. It finally happened in May, when Patnaik was in London, his first overseas visit in 12 years as chief minister. In his absence, Mohapatra sought to mobilise party leaders and MLAs at his residence.

It was a show of strength, even though there was some loose talk of an alternative government. The Congress too is supposed to have fished in these troubled waters. In the end, however, Patnaik hit back and suspended Mohapatra. The MLAs and three ministers who attended that fateful meeting in “Pyari babu’s” house are now running scared, wondering if the shy, private but at once ruthless CM will now turn his gaze on them.

All this is getting ahead of the story. The central narrative is not of the rebels in the BJD camp or of whether Patnaik will survive them — there is little doubt he will, and that he remains unchallenged in the state — but relates to Mohapatra. A shrewd man and power practitioner who played Chanakya to three chief ministers, his luck may finally have run out.

Just who is Pyarimohan Mohapatra? A child of Odisha’s old (undivided) Dhenkanal district, he was a left-wing activist in his student days, before focussing on the Civil Services examination. He initially qualified for the IPS, before making it to the IAS in 1963. Some IAS officers are ambitious, become policy wonks and seek to make it big in New Delhi. Others are content with the comfort of a home cadre — being posted in the state they are natives of — and seek to become big influences there. Mohapatra chose the second route.

It served him well but also made him controversial. He cultivated people and built his own coterie. When Mohapatra ran the state secretariat in Bhubaneswar in the late 1980s — in JB Patnaik’s term as Congress CM — he built a rapport with key staff and trade unions. In the years to come, he was to use these levers to key constituencies for Naveen Patnaik.

During his district days, Mohapatra served as Collector of important districts such as Koraput and Keonjhar. He had his achievements but also his share of corruption charges. In Keonjhar, he was accused of making money on mining leases and pilferage of panchayat funds.

NEVERTHELESS, MOHAPATRA’S abilities and reputation as a man who could get things done drew him to JB Patnaik, who was CM in 1980-90. He put Mohapatra in important posts in the state secretariat and made him the CM’s key lieutenant. However, JB Patnaik was a clever and experienced hand — he ran Mohapatra rather than allowing the pushy bureaucrat to run him. More than that, working alongside JB Patnaik, Mohapatra got a ringside view of Indian (and Odisha) politics at its harshest and most desperate.

In 1990, the Congress was voted out and Biju Patnaik’s Janata Dal won power. Many expected Mohapatra to be eased out. This didn’t happen. The new CM needed somebody from the old order to help him navigate the system. Mohapatra offered himself for the job and became Biju Patnaik’s principal secretary. In the next five years, he became the most powerful man in Odisha after the CM. As Biju Patnaik got more and more involved in national politics, Mohapatra found he had ample room for independent action.

Unlike JB Patnaik, Biju Patnaik was a big-picture politician and left day-to-day management — and the ability to distribute loaves and fishes — to Mohapatra. This was when he came to be nicknamed “PM” (his initials), indicating an ascendancy over even the CM. When JB Patnaik came back to power in 1995, there was no reconciliation. Mohapatra was shunted out as administrator of a training school for civil servants.

When Mohapatra retired from the IAS in 1997, he was seething. He was full of plans and the state too was in transition. Biju Patnaik died in April that year, and the JD disintegrated. The Congress was in decline and the BJP a rising force. Some felt Odisha was destined towards a Congress-BJP polity. Others, notably Mohapatra, felt there was room for a third force.

On Biju Patnaik’s death, Mohapatra got to know his son, Naveen. Naveen’s mother, Gyan, did the introductions, seeing Mohapatra as a family friend and loyalist who would help her son learn the ropes. Mentored by Mohapatra and several of his father’s associates, Patnaik Jr founded the BJD, which tied-up with the BJP. When Patnaik became steel minister in the NDA government, he gave Mohapatra a sinecure in Nalco.

In 2000, the BJD won a famous victory in Odisha — and began a thus far unfinished ride in which it has won every round of civic, panchayat, state and national elections. With each victory, Patnaik grew stronger, and Mohapatra more powerful. He helped the BJD build a structure across the state and became a fixture in Odisha society. He handpicked MLA candidates. He protected Patnaik from would-be challengers such as Dilip Ray, Bijay Mohapatra, Randra Pratap Swain and most recently, Pa tnaik’s Doon School mate AU Singh Deo.

Mohapatra was also a policy counsellor, advising Patnaik to build a network of women’s self-help groups. These have become crucial vote mobilisers for the BJD. With an acute sense of what would work with Odisha society, he also suggested the subsidised rice scheme, where a kg of rice is sold for Rs 2. Implemented with rigour, this has become the BJD’s calling card in rural Odisha.

It is one of Patnaik’s characteristics that he uses and discards, or perhaps outgrows, political allies. This has happened with party colleagues, it happened with the BJP — he broke with the party just before the 2009 polls, gambled that the BJD could win alone and came out triumphant. In 2009, it was Mohapatra who had instigated and encouraged that divorce. He masterminded Patnaik’s poll campaign, and took him to unparalleled supremacy.

Today, ironically, it is Mohapatra himself whom Patnaik has outgrown. The CM’s confidants have another side to the story. They insist Mohapatra’s clout was exaggerated and that it was only a tactical ploy on Patnaik’s part to give the impression that the former bureaucrat called the shots. Nevertheless, Mohapatra must have given Patnaik a scare. According to him, 33 MLAs, including three ministers, met him at his residence on 29 May. Another 13 MLAs came close to his house, he insists, but left due to the media circus outside. If this is true, 46 MLAs out of the BJD legislative strength of 104 showed up.

What did this amount to? Gobind Das, veteran political columnist in Bhubaneswar, calls it a miscalculation: “Pyari’s assessment was a bureaucratic one rather than political. It seems that Pyari had reposed utmost confidence in MLAs who were given tickets by him and felt they would support him. But in politics, such beliefs would be foolhardy. When the MLAs understood Pyari’s proximity with other political parties had failed to form an alternative government… they instantly abandoned Pyari and rejoined Naveen’s camp.” If this is true, Patnaik has trumped the man he once addressed as “Uncle”. Pyarimohan Mohapatra is finally walking into the sunset.

letters@tehelka.com

A rejoinder from Pyarimohan Mohapatra

I saw your writings captioned “Odisha Chanakya Runs Out of Luck” and I would like to clarify few mistakes or mistaken notions which have crept into the article.

• I wielded substantial power and not ‘immense power’ under two Chief Ministers and not ‘three’ Chief Ministers. Secondly, I was not ‘content’ with the comforts of home cadre nor tried to become ‘big influence there’. On the other hand, four postings to the GoI – one when Smt Nandini Satpathy was the Chief Minister, the 2nd and 3rd when Shri JB Patnaik was Chief Minister and the 4th when Biju Patnaik was Chief Minister were turned down by the then Government to my discomfiture to the extent that on one occasion, my younger son lost a year of education.

• The sentence “he cultivated people and built his own coterie’ is least applicable to me. If you talk to any of my colleagues in Odisha Administration, they will tell you that if there was one IAS Officer without a coterie and a person who never cultivated any senior bosses or politicians, it was me. So the barb is really painful.

• As for “running the State Secretariat in the late 80s in JB Patnaik’s time” which you have mentioned, I do not know who told that utterly false thing to you. I was Chief Electoral Officer from 1983 to 1990 and in that role; I was hated by the ruling party for my aggressive neutrality. Along with that post, I was Secretary of Revenue and later of Education Departments which were not wanted by most officers.

• The worst kind of reporting you have done against me is by saying that in Keonjhar, as Collector, I “was accused of making money on mining leases and pilferage of Panchayat funds”. From where could you collect such bullshit? I know of no such allegation having been made during my tenure or at any time thereafter till I retired in the year 1998. You have also made a mistake by saying that I was Collector of Koraput district. It is not a fact.

• You also write that my “abilities and reputation as a man who could get things done drew him to JB Patnaik, who was CM in 1980-90. He put Mohapatra in important posts in the state secretariat and made him the CM’s key lieutenant. However, JB Patnaik was a clever and experienced hand – he ran Mohapatra rather than allowing the pushy bureaucrat to run him”. Again this is a total lie. As I mentioned, JB Patnaik put me in Departments which had no significance where one had to work like a donkey and face natural calamities, drought, cyclone and continuous strikes by teachers from elementary to University stage. If you would have talked to any officer, he would have told you that in JB Patnaik’s time, I was posted to low-key departments.

• You also wrote that when Janata Dal came to power ‘many expected Mohapatra to be eased out’ and ‘Mohapatra offered himself for the job and became Biju Patnaik’s Principal Secretary’. Again the facts are contrary to the truth. I was offered the post of Principal Secretary but refused to join and joined after six days of posting when Biju Patnaik would not relent.

• I retired from IAS in 1998 and not in 1997. Your statement that he was ‘seething’ is totally untrue, as he jumped into more work for more than half a dozen institutions which he had either built up or been associated with.

• Your statement ‘On Biju Patnaik’s death Mohapatra got to know his son Naveen’ is incorrect as I had met Naveen earlier in 1992 when Naveen came calling on his father at Odisha Bhawan. Naveen’s mother, Smt Gyan Patnaik, did not do any introduction which the media has been projecting and you have lapped it up. Shri Naveen Patnaik called me in 1999 to help him before the State Assembly Elections of 2000 and I agreed to be a voluntary and honourary consultant.

• A Directorship in NALCO cannot be called a ‘sinecure’. In another place you have mentioned that I ‘protected Patnaik from would-be challengers such as Dilip Ray, Bijay Mohapatra, Ranendra Pratap Swain’ etc. Dilip Ray was not a challenger of Patnaik and Ranendra Pratap Swain was too small to be a challenger.

• In the penultimate sentence of the article you have stated that ‘Patnaik has trumped the man he once addressed as ‘uncle’. Again the word ‘uncle’ has been the invention of the media. I have never known Shri Naveen Patnaik referring to me as uncle either before me or before anybody else.