Samikhsya Bureau
In electoral politics, exchange of brickbats are usual. But once it get into personal level insinuations, it becomes uneasy for people at large.
The latest wordy battle between chief minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, and his arch political rival Baijayant Panda on Twitter is a case in point.
Panda has fired many salvos at Patnaik in the past through TV, in meetings and on Twitter with the latter never reacting to the former. But while announcing the candidature of cine star Anubhav Mohanty on Wednesday, Patnaik took a subtle dig at Panda without taking his name. He said that Mohanty would work “only for the interest of people of people of Kendrapara” and would not hide anything in his affidavit unlike the “earlier one” who worked for a mining company, drawing salary and lobbying for mining lease.
It was an apparent swipe at Panda who had faced the legal wrath by hiding few such details in his affidavit at the time of earlier nomination. It was something from Patnaik that was not only unprecedented but it created a ripple in the political circle.
Not to be cowed down, Panda retaliated to the chief minister’s satire delving to a personal level. On Twitter, he went to the extent of saying that Patnaik’s late father Biju Patnaik had not only a very cordial relation with Panda family’s industry but was in a way ‘dependent’ on it.
It is something that does not go well with the people because Biju Patnaik is no more and it is his (Biju Patnaik) name that both the warring factions are trying to make political capital out of.
This is a spat between Naveen Patnaik and Panda, and dragging the name of Biju Patnaik into this through an avoidable and personal reminiscence is surely not in good taste.
