The Naveen Patnaik era in Odisha has ended after 24 uninterrupted years, with the Biju Janata Dal leader’s dream of winning a sixth straight term and going on to become the country’s longest-serving chief minister lying in tatters on Tuesday.

At 8.30pm, the BJD had won or led from just 50 seats in the 147-member Assembly, while the BJP was headed for victory in 79, that is, five over the majority mark of 74. The Congress was ahead in 14 seats.

In the Lok Sabha elections from Odisha, the BJP led from 19 of the 21 seats, with the BJD and the Congress leading from Jajpur and Koraput, respectively.

Perhaps the biggest blow to the BJD was that Naveen lost from Kantabanji, the second Assembly seat he was contesting apart from his traditional seat of Hinjili, which he
has retained.

What seemed to have done the trick for the BJP was its projection of the chief minister’s right-hand man, bureaucrat turned politician V.K. Pandian, as an “outsider” and portraying his influence on the BJD and the state administration as an affront to “Odia asmita (pride)”.

The BJP also sought to foreground the issue of the missing keys of the Ratna Bhandar (treasure store) at the Jagannath temple in Puri.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who led his party’s campaign, focused on these issues.

Modi and other BJP campaigners seemed to have correctly read Odias’ growing resentment against Pandian, and convinced the electorate that the state would come under “Tamilian rule” if the BJP won the election.

Naveen, 77, has had a chequered political relationship with the BJP.

Uninterested in politics till his father Biju Patnaik’s death in 1997, Naveen had been practically forced to become Biju’s political heir and contest the Lok Sabha by-election from Aska.

He won and became a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. On March 5, 2000, he led a BJD-BJP alliance to victory in the Assembly elections and formed a coalition government in the state for the first time.

With the BJP as ally, he ruled the state for nearly nine years. But the alliance broke up ahead of the 2009 elections, when the BJD accused the BJP of inciting anti-Christian riots in Kandhamal. The BJD swept the 2009 polls.

Over the following decade and a half, Naveen emerged as the unchallenged leader of Odisha, adored by millions for his austere lifestyle and crusade against corruption. The Opposition sought to make an issue of his poor knowledge of Odia, but the people’s love for him was undiminished.

The tide turned after Pandian entered the scene. Murmurs began among bureaucrats, politicians and common citizens about his “undue” interference in the administration.

Pandian took voluntary retirement from the IAS and joined the BJD in October 2023. Despite being an ordinary party member, he began taking all the decisions, including the distribution of poll tickets, and also led the campaign.

There were allegations that he continued to interfere in the administration and took all the decisions on Naveen’s behalf. Video footage of Pandian holding Naveen’s trembling hand on a campaign dais and nudging him from the back as a sort of signal created a negative image.

Modi read the public mood and hammered Pandian and Naveen, raising the issues of the chief minister’s frail health and political succession.

Just ahead of the last phase of polling, Naveen said that Pandian was not his political successor. But it was too late.