Bhubaneswar: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Odisha Assembly Naveen Patnaik celebrated his birthday on Wednesday after seven years.
As the former Chief Minister turned 78, a host of visitors, including party leaders, people from different spheres and students, reached Naveen Niwas in Bhubaneswar and greeted him.
Among others, veteran leader Debi Prasad Mishra, Sanjay Das Burma, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Arun Sahoo, Anant Narayan Jena, Shshant Rout, Mayor Sulochana Das, Arabinda Mohapatra, Sunil Mohanty, Souvic Biswal, Ramesh Majhi and Shreemayee Mishra visited Naveen Niwas and wished the BJD supremo on his birthday.
Representatives from various organisations, including Prajapita Brahmakumari Ishwariya Vishwavidyalaya, and students also conveyed him birthday greetings.
BJD also organised blood donation camps in each assembly constituency to celebrate the birthday of its supremo. A special camp was also organised at Sankha Bhawan, the official headquarters of the party in Bhubaneswar. The party workers led by Puri MLA Sunil Mohanty also organised a mass diya lighting event in front of Singhadwar of Shree Jagannath Temple in the pilgrim town.
Naveen was born on October 16, 1946, in Cuttack. The alumnus of Doon School and Kirorimal College learnt the art of politics after he first won the Lok Sabha by-election from Aska in 1997, a seat that fell vacant following the death of his father. He then broke away from the Janata Dal and formed Biju Janata Dal the same year. In the Lok Sabha polls the next year, his party allied with the BJP and Naveen joined Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government as the steel and mines minister.
Naveen became the Chief Minister in 2000 when the state was still recovering from the devastation caused by the 1999 Super Cyclone. His party, however, lost the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections after remaining at the helm for 24 years which made Naveen the second longest serving CM in the country’s history.
It may be noted that Naveen did not celebrate his birthday for the last many years. It was in 2011 that Naveen first decided against celebrating his birthday in honour of the flood victims. Two years later (2013), the state was struck by Cyclone Phailin in which 23 people were killed and about 9 million residents were affected. More than 1 million people were evacuated ahead of its landfall to avoid a repeat of the 1999 cyclone, which saw 10,000 deaths. Choosing not to celebrate his birthday, Naveen held rehabilitation and relief meetings with senior officials with a focus on restoring electricity in the worst-affected Ganjam district.
In 2014, the Chief Minister did not celebrate his birthday in view of the devastation caused by cyclone Hudhud which left three persons dead and hundreds homeless in the state. As a mark of respect to the jawans, who laid down their lives fighting against terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, Naveen decided against any kind of celebrations in 2016.
In 2018, he did not celebrate his birthday in view of the large-scale damage and human suffering caused due to cyclone Titli and subsequent floods in several districts.
The loss inflicted by cyclone Fani that struck Odisha coast near Puri on May 3, 2019, again saw him giving his birthday celebrations a skip in 2019.
He had also decided not to celebrate the day in 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic and again in 2021 with the second wave returning to haunt the state again.
In 2022 too, Naveen had appealed to people not to visit his residence to wish him on his birthday. Instead, he flew to Hyderabad to attend the last curtain raiser to the ‘Make in Odisha’ conclave, the state’s flagship industry-investors meet.
In 2023, he chose not to celebrate his birthdat in view of the demise of his elder sister Gita Mehta.
