Bhubaneswar/ New Delhi:
A late night meeting at house of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Rajya Sabha MP Pyarimohan Mahapatra reportedly threatened to take down the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha. Mr Mohapatra had been the Odisha Chief Minister's most trusted aide, his man for party matters and political advisor for the last ten years.
Reacting sharply to the developments, Mr Patnaik, who is in London, cut short his trip. Sources say Mr Patnaik was supposed to reach Bhubaneswar on June 2, but will now reach the state capital tomorrow morning. "I understand that in my absence, an MP of my party is stirring trouble against my state government and also trying to divide the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). This is deplorable," Mr Patnaik told reporters in London.
But within hours of the Tuesday night meeting in Delhi, the rebellion seemed to have fizzled out. Mr Mohapatra today officially dismissed reports of any split within the party. "There is absolutely no threat to Naveen Patnaik from me. He is completely safe as chief minister as he is the leader of the BJD," he said.
"Had I wanted to become Chief Minister, I could have tried long ago instead of waiting for so many years. I could have tried in 2009 also," the former bureaucrat-turned-MP added.
Sources within the BJD say the threat to the Odisha government was over in hours because the numbers did not stack up, as the dissidents would have liked them to. The BJD has 104 of the 147 seats in the Odisha Assembly. The Congress has 27 MLAs, the BJP six, the NCP four and five independents. Off record the dissidents claimed they had the support of 80 MLAs, including 17 from the Congress and three from the NCP. But just 25 BJD MLAs, including 4 ministers, were seen walking into Mr Mahapatra's house.
The Chief Minister's camp went into damage control mode, and on Wednesday morning all MLAs were asked to reach Mr Patnaik's residence in Bhubaneshwar. Many MLAs, including the 4 so-called rebel ministers, turned up in no time.
A confindent Jay Panda, a BJD MP told NDTV, "I think if somebody had the support of 80 MLAs then we would be having a different kind of conversation today. As far as I have seen this morning reported by your channel and other regional local channels I think 25 MLA's had gathered out of the 109 that have supported the BJD government led by Shri Naveen Patnaik. So you know the numbers simply don't add up."
But observers say while the overnight rebellion may have petered out, this is the first time in 12 years that Naveen Patnaik's leadership of the party and the state has been challenged.
The question many are asking now is, has the overnight rebellion done damage to Mr Patnaik? His clean image and populist programmes like rice at Rs 2 per kilogram have worked wonders for the party and his government.
Politically, he has proved to be a force to be reckon with as he rallied chief ministers against the Centre's anti-terror body and also pitched for NCP's tribal leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma as President.
But his biggest weakness was to rely heavily on Mr Mohapatra and staying cut off from party workers. His style of functioning had come in for heavy criticism during the recent Maoist hostage crisis