Minister-Less Team Raises Eyebrows As Naveen Patnaik Set To Embark On His 2nd Foreign Trip

Bhubaneswar: The delegation, which Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will be leading during his 10-day foreign trip to Rome and Dubai from June 20, does not include any minister, lending credence to Opposition allegations that it’s the bureaucrats who call the shots in the Odisha government.

The delegation includes Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra, Secretary to CM (5T) V K Pandian, Principal Secretary Food and Civil Supplies V V Yadav, Principal Secretary Industries Hemant Sharma, Resident Commissioner in New Delhi Ravi Kant. But no one from the council of ministers, which was reshuffled a few weeks ago, has made it.

In Naveen’s fifth term as Chief Minister of Odisha, bureaucrats have been reviewing development projects across the state while ministers, more often than not, are conspicuous by their absence. Except for a few bytes to the media, they are almost found playing second fiddle. Even during the peak of the COVID pandemic health minister Nabakishore Das’ was alleged to be missing in action with officers and technocrats getting maximum attention.

The Opposition BJP and Congress has on different occasions alleged that bureaucrats in Odisha are “collaborators in political activities” in the state and functioning in a partisan manner while betraying political ambitions even when they are part of the premier government service.

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The IAS and IPS officers were also recently caught in a political storm over the visit of a delegation to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s residence to congratulate him on the Biju Janata Dal’s victory in the rural and urban polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lodged its protest with Governor Ganeshi Lal, calling the officers “politicians in disguise” and accusing them of indulging in “blatant violation of service conduct rules.” Echoing the BJP’s allegations, Congress had said, “It seems the real cadre of the BJD is the state bureaucracy which has ceased to exist independently.”

BJD leaders in private conversations tell ‘no-more-secret’ stories of how IAS and at times IPS officers determine their fates, be it at the district or state levels. It is a common belief that all work in the state is transacted from the ‘Third Floor’ (as the CMO is popularly referred to) of the state secretariat. This has coincided with CM’s private secretary V Karthikeya Pandian possibly emerging as the most influential factor in the ruling dispensation during the past 10 years. As Naveen’s most-trusted person, he acts as his eyes and ears and assists him in key decision making. His administrative acumen and political astuteness had contributed to the BJD’s landslide victory, for the fifth consecutive time, in Elections 2019. He is also the 5T secretary of the state government. And is said to have played a key role in organising Naveen’s second overseas trip in 22 years as CM.

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Notably, Naveen’s last foreign trip was in May 2012 when he toured the United Kingdom. Pandian had also accompanied the CM then and rose to prominence thereafter following the aborted coup bid by then Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mohapatra in the BJD on May 29, which forced Naveen to abruptly cut short his visit and return to Odisha. Usha Devi was the lone political figure on this trip.

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