Is There A Message For Narendra Modi In Naveen Patnaik’s Meeting With Nitish Kumar?

Bhubaneswar: Did BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik meet his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar with an intention to build a grand alliance to fight BJP in the 2024 elections? Or, was he aiming to send a message to top BJP honchos including PM Narendra Modi?

Naveen said no discussion on forming any alliance was held during the lunch meeting at his residence, Naveen Niwas, on Tuesday and downplayed the political buzz by saying they only discussed the allocation of 1.5 acre of land in Puri to the Bihar government for a guesthouse, while Nitish avoided direct comments on whether they discussed politics. While Nitish appeared happy, Naveen exhibited no emotions in photographs posted on his official Twitter handle about the meeting. The BJD supremo only mentioned about the special bond which people of the neighbouring states share and hoped that Nitish had a pleasant and fruitful stay in Odisha.

But a tweet on the official handle of Janata Dal (United) contradicted these posers as it hailed Nitish as the leader of opposition unity.

Notably, the BJD, which has since 2009 been officially claiming to have maintained equidistance from both BJP and Congress, has avoided joining either the NDA or evolving a non-BJP alliance so far by skipping all meetings aimed at forging a Third Front. It has, however, over the years showed an inclination towards having good understanding with the party in power at the Centre. The regional party maintained healthy ties with the Congress-led UPA government between 2009 and 2014, and it has been supporting the Narendra Modi government at the Centre on almost all issues since 2019. And Naveen’s strategy to keep BJP top leadership in good humour is said to have worked to his advantage so far as blunting BJP’s attack against BJD is concerned. Which is why, political experts say, CBI and ED have not been very active in Odisha compared to certain other states including West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi and Telangana.

The Odisha BJP, however, is of late seemingly adopting an aggressive stand against the Conch party with an eye on 2024 twin polls. Political experts feel by meeting Nitish, Naveen could be trying to tell Modi & Co that if they step up their bellicosity against his dispensation then he very well has the option to join hands with proponents of the Third Front. A few weeks ago, Naveen met his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee at his residence at a time when BJP was firing salvoes at the BJD government over alleged lawlessness in the state.

Naveen has never betrayed any national ambitions but succeeded in keeping his chief opponents BJP and Congress at bay by exploiting their political compulsions at the national level. Therefore, there is no reason to believe he is not keeping his cards close to his chest yet again to ensure he is successful in dangling the ‘possible ally carrot’ to both sides of the national political spectrum.