FORMER BUREAUCRAT PANDIAN TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN ODISHA POLITICS

Pandian is likely to shape BJD politics in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

Former Indian Administrative Officer, V. Karthikeyan Pandian, who for years was described as the “Super Chief Minister” of Odisha, will play a key role for the Biju Janata Dal in the upcoming Assembly elections in Odisha and the Lok Sabha elections.

Pandian, the 2000 batch IAS officer, who took voluntary retirement in October last year when he still had more than ten years left in service, was born in Koothappanpatti, Melur, Tamil Nadu. He became the proverbial eye and ear of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in May 2011, when he was appointed as the Private Secretary to the CM in the rank of Deputy Secretary, which was just his seventh posting. Soon after the VRS, Pandian officially joined the BJD in November.

Since then, the May 1974born Pandian, who has a Master’s of Science in Plant Physiology from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, has acted as a larger-than-life shadow to the 77-year-old Patnaik, who has been serving as CM since 5 March 2000.

Pandian, even before he took VRS, was regarded by foreign diplomats and bureaucrats working in Delhi, as someone who held more influence in the state than the Chief Minister himself when it came to policy discussions and decisions related to Odisha.

While initially, Pandian was more focused on the policy related to the administration of the state, now, party sources said, he is also handling the party’s affairs in the state in an aggressive manner and all the candidates for both the Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha elections of BJD will be finalized only after Pandian has said yes.