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Lok Sabha elections 2019: In Naveen Patnaik bastion, BJP pins hope on former bureaucrat
The 1994-batch Odisha cadre IAS officer quit last year, forgoing as many as 11 years of service, to take a plunge into electoral politics. By her own admission, she is one of the lucky few who was “sort of assured” about the choice of seat even before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Aparajita Sarangi is candid about having got the “best postings under the Naveen Patnaik government” in Odisha. Yet, she wants to change the way chief minister Patnaik runs his state.
The 1994-batch Odisha cadre IAS officer quit last year, forgoing as many as 11 years of service, to take a plunge into electoral politics. By her own admission, she is one of the lucky few who was “sort of assured” about the choice of seat even before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Poverty and backwardness are writ large on Odisha’s face. We are 25th in terms of poverty and per capita income in the list of 29 states. The state government has no long-term vision. They lack maturity in decision-making,” says Sarangi, BJP candidate from Bhubaneswar, attacking the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as she relaxes at home between campaigns.
Sarangi is one of the BJP’s best hopes in the coastal Odisha region, which has been a BJD stronghold for years. Having been Bhubaneswar municipal commissioner from 2006 to 2009, she knows the city and its problems. The people are also familiar with her work.
“I have an advantage over my competitors,” says Sarangi, with a smile, “I enter homes to chat with women. I share their food in their kitchen. They open up to me very easily. I hope to get their support.”
She campaigns for long hours every day but is well aware that winning the state capital is a tall order.
The BJD has continuously won the seat since 1996. Bhubaneswar has elected Congress MPs and even Communist Party of India (Marxist) MPs, but never one from the BJP.
Sarangi calls her tryst with the BJP “a mutual love affair”. When she was joint secretary in the Union rural development ministry in charge of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, she observed very closely how the Modi government worked.
Last year, she returned to Odisha with the hope of joining politics.
According to the former bureaucrat, “it’s the bureaucrats, not the politicians, who run the state”. Comparing Patnaik with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, she says, “Naveen babu inaugurates projects through video conferences from Bhubaneswar but look at Naidu. Every month he travels across the state for at least 20 days.” She adds, “The person who is at the top can’t be remote-controlled. Naveen has ruled for 19 years as there was no alternative. There was a political vacuum so he could rule. But things have changed now.”
Her bureaucrat friends label her as “efficient” and “very ambitious”. But a BJD leader said, “She has been a career bureaucrat. She doesn’t know ground-level political realities. People of Odisha are firm about supporting Naveen Patnaik. Bhubaneswar has always stood for the BJD.”
