Bhubaneswar: Is Naveen idolising PM Modi now or the crafty politician in Naveen is donning the mantle? It seems its fifty-fifty.
These posers are abuzz in the political circles in a big way post CM Naveen Patnaik once again doing a Modi redux yesterday by releasing a study by Jindal Group about Odisha having the belly-fire to become one trillion dollar economy, close on the heels of PM Modi going overboard on making India a five-trillion dollar economy by 2024.
The big thing amiss in the Odisha's trillion dollar dream-sell is the target date.
This is not a single instance. When Modi upbraided BJP MLA Akash Vijayvargiya, son of BJP biggie Kailash Vijayvargiya, over his bat-strike on civic authorities, Naveen, the very next day, held a meeting with BJD MLAs at Naveen Niwas and gave a sermon aka the Modi style.
Here lies the political catch. Because, sometime back, BJD Patnagarh MLA Saroj Meher had shown authoritarian streaks by compelling a government official to do sit-ups publicly. The authoritarian show had then dominated the political and media world. But Naveen didn't deliver his sermon of good Samaritan act to BJD's newly elected MLAs.
It's only when PM Modi ticked his party's errant MLA, Naveen suddenly woke up and deemed it necessary to sermonise the wayward BJD MLAs.
Take the latest instance. When PM Modi asked his party MPs, including Ministers, to go for 150km padayatra from October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti) to October 31 (Sardar Jayanti), at a Council of Ministers meeting at Secretariat today, Naveen has asked his Ministers to conduct extensive tours. The focus of tours should be people connect. And, of course, propagating to the people about State government's programmes and initiatives, exactly the words that PM Modi had sermonised to his MPs and Ministers a couple of days ago.
Such are only a few instances to emphasise how PM Modi's style overawes Naveen, especially post the historic 2019 mandate.
Political observers feel Naveen doing a Modi here has two aspects. First, the element of 'overawe'. Post the big win, the tone and tenor of Naveen's congratulatory message to Modi did unravel the element of 'overawe'. The ceding of one Rajya Sabha seat to BJP's Ashwini Vaishnaw on PM Modi's request underlines the 'overawe' aspect in capital letters.
Secondly, observers also read it as Naveen's political art. Post the big saffron surge in LS 2019 polls, when BJP grabbed the Bargarh LS seat despite CM contesting from an assembly seat there, Naveen has been making all shrewd moves, so that Modi cannot hold the forte here. The CM, thus, very meticulously is planning his political strategy by carefully keeping a watch on Modi's every move. And jumping into the fray of trillion dollar race is only a latest classic instance.