VK Pandian: A Very Special Officer

IN EARLY MAY, as a cyclonic storm passed over the Bay of Bengal, three men, all in white, met over a simple and traditional lunch in Bhubaneswar. The host was Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the guest, his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar. The third man, over 20 years younger than the two septuagenarians, was V Karthikeyan Pandian, Patnaik’s private secretary, his importance underscored by the fact that even Lalan Singh, the national president of Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), who had accompanied Kumar from Patna, was not at the table.

Kumar, who was anchoring a meeting of opposition parties, was hoping to get the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader on board. Though the meeting between the two, both former Cabinet colleagues in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, went off cordially, Patnaik, accord­ing to JD(U) sources, politely turned down the proposal saying the timing for it was not right. The two leaders are understood to have talked about their days in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as Patnaik sat at the head of the table with Kumar to his left and Pandian to the right.

Pandian’s presence may have been unexpected for the high-level delegation from Bihar, but not in the power circles of Odisha, where he is acknowledged as Patnaik’s most trusted lieutenant. The chief minister’s right-hand man, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer is in the line of fire of political rivals—BJP and Congress—in the state, over various allegations, which they say amount to crossing the red line as a civil servant. Two bureaucrats-turned-politicians—BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi and Congress leader Bijay Patnaik—are in the forefront of the opposition attack against Pandian. Sarangi, along with BJP state chief Manmohan Samal, lodged a complaint with the Department of Personnel and Train­ing (DoPT) on June 24, saying Pandian was using state helicopters, attending public receptions and announcing new projects in violation of the All India Services (Conduct), or AIS, rules. Patnaik also alleged violation of AIS norms, saying Pandian has appeared on hoardings bearing the BJD symbol and was making public announcements of grants to various institutions.

What triggered the recent attacks was Pandian hitting the road, touring various districts of the state, mingling with the crowds, shak­ing hands, being warmly greeted by people, particularly women who form a large chunk of Patnaik’s support base, listening to grievances and collecting petitions. Characteristically dressed in a white shirt, he is no stranger in Odisha where he is seen as the emissary of the longest-serving chief minister in the country.

BJD dismisses the opposition allegations. According to party leader Pinaki Misra, when the chief minister decided to revive and give a push to the grievance redress mechanism which had to be discontinued during Covid, Pandian, as part of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), started a tour of the districts, along with three-four other officials, asking people whether they were benefitting from Patnaik’s pet flagship projects. So far, he has visited around 15 dis­tricts and collected thousands of grievance petitions. Since Patnaik did not use the official accommodation given to him and lived in his own house, he converted that building into a grievance redress cell. “Ordinarily, collectors hold meetings at the district level on a regular basis. This is just an extension of that. As the chief minister’s private secretary, Pandian has been told by the chief minister to go out and gather [information on] public grievances from all 30 districts and get back to him. It is a quicker way of addressing the complaints than via collectors. Word goes out that there will be, and indeed has been, instant redress. This is what has raised the hackles of the opposition. He is not saying vote for BJD or for Naveen Patnaik.”

BJD’S RIVALS SAY Pandian is flouting bureaucratic norms, crossing into the domain of politics. It is said that Pandian had a say on strategy, candidates and campaign in the run-up to the 2019 General Election, though many familiar with developments in the party insist it is Patnaik who takes the call. It was Pandian through whom the press could get interviews with the chief minister. He was as elusive on social media or phone as Patnaik was in person. The only way of getting through to Pandian was on the messaging service Telegram. Soon after Patnaik’s swearing-in as chief minister for a fifth consecu­tive term on May 29, 2019, which incidentally coincided with Pandian’s 45th birthday, the latter reportedly changed his number, becoming inaccessible to many people. He has changed his number often even after that, say party sources. After BJD returned to power in Odisha, Pandian was ap­pointed secretary 5T (Transparency, Teamwork, Technol­ogy, Time and Transformation), along with being private secretary to the chief minister. By then it was no secret that Pandian was not just any IAS officer. He had the chief minister’s ear, in a way no bureaucrat in the state may have had.

A minister in the Patnaik government recently referred to Pandian as “Sir” while defending him against opposition charges, saying he was just reviewing projects on directions of the chief minister. The honorific did not go unnoticed. His clout in the chief minister’s office, making him one of the most powerful bu­reaucrats, is believed to have caused heartburn even within certain sections of BJD. But all agree on one of his traits—he delivers, and fast. A Tamilian who speaks Odiya, the 49-year-old wakes up before the sun rises and goes for an 8-10 km run at the Kalinga Stadium which was spruced up in 90 days when the state accepted the challenge to organise the 2017 Asian Athletics Champi­onships. Pandian was behind the push to get recognition for the state, which hosted the Men’s Hockey World Cup 2018 and 2023, as a sports destination. A workaholic, teetotaller and sparse vegetar­ian eater, he often has Vishnu Sahasranama, mostly sung by MS Subbulakshmi, playing in the background. Senior party leaders have routinely got messages from him at 4AM. That is when his day begins. “Sharp, efficient and hard-working,” is how party insiders and political analysts in the state describe Pandian.

“It’s unconstitutional for a serving civil servant to be openly involved in politics, collecting political funds, distributing tickets and holding public rallies. This is an untenable situ­ation and must not be allowed to continue,” says BJP leader Jay Panda, who quit BJD in 2018. A founding member of BJD, Panda was close to Patnaik and the two frequently had dinner together. But around 2017, a chasm started widening between them. After he was suspended from the primary membership of the party for “anti-party” activities and “conflict of interest” in January 2018, Panda blamed it on a conspiracy by Pandian. The party MP from Kendrapara resigned after Patnaik and other BJD leaders skipped the last rites for Panda’s father Bansidhar Panda, an industrialist who was close to Biju Patnaik, saying that was the “last straw”.

Pandian is not the first bureaucrat to have gained the trust of a chief minister. When Nitish Kumar became chief minister in 2005, he made IAS officer Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, known as RCP Singh, his principal secretary. Kumar had got acquainted with Singh in the late 1990s when he was railway minister and Singh, an Uttar Pradesh cadre officer, was on Central deputation. In 2010, Singh took voluntary retirement from the civil services to join JD(U) and got a Rajya Sabha seat. He went on to become national president of the party and got a berth in the Union Cabi­net in 2021. Unlike Pandian, who is not an Odiya, Singh was from Bihar and that too from Nalanda, Kumar’s home turf. Pandian caught Patnaik’s attention as the collector of Ganjam, the Odisha chief minister’s constituency. He was brought to the state capital in 2011 and ever since there has been no looking back. Before him, Patnaik had turned to Pyarimohan Mohapatra, a bureaucrat-turned-politician who was his father Biju Patnaik’s principal secretary, for advice. Mohapatra had his nose to the ground, un­derstood the state, and remembered names of people and places. Naveen Patnaik’s dependence on Mohapatra, whom he referred to as “uncle”, had caused resentment among some within BJD. Mohapatra came to be seen as ‘Chanakya’ in the state’s politics but things started souring between the two from 2009. In 2012, after Patnaik heard of Mohapatra’s unsuccessful coup attempt when he was abroad, he was suspended from the party. By then, Pandian was already by Patnaik’s side.

“Those who say Pandian is dictating party affairs are underesti­mating the chief minister’s grip on politics and his political and in­tellectual brilliance, which also shows how well he disguises it. He has this inverse snobbery. People do not realise the extent to which he has his finger on the pulse in each of the 147 Assembly constitu­encies. He does not show it, but he is aware of the merits and demer­its of each party aspirant,” says Misra, who is a four-term Lok Sabha MP from Puri. Pandian has more than one office in Bhubaneswar, his 5T designation giving him access to several departments, but not one at Sankha Bhavan, the new party headquarters, he quips.

MISRA DISCARDS AS mere speculation that Pandian or his wife—Odiya bureaucrat Sujata Karthikeyan Pandian who heads Mission Shakti, an endeavour to empower women economically through the promotion of self-help groups—has political aspirations, saying their only loyalty is to the chief minister and to ensure he wins a record sixth term. The chief minister’s initiative launched in 2001, Mission Shakti has been elevated to the status of a department.

A former BJD leader also dismisses speculation about Pandian intending to make a foray into politics, in a party in which so far a second-rung leader has not emerged, saying it was unlikely that he had political ambitions beyond ensuring that Patnaik remained in power. BJD’s strategies, policies, flag­ship schemes addressing basic needs, promotion of sport, wom­en’s empowerment, and revamping of temples have retained Patnaik’s popularity, posing a challenge to BJP. BJP has, how­ever, managed to wrest the main opposition space from Con­gress, winning eight of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and even increasing its vote share. But BJD’s landslide victory in the zilla parishad elections has only bolstered the party’s confidence. Political analysts say it is difficult to pinpoint which of the state government’s decisions was initiated by Patnaik and which was Pandian’s brainchild.

Many policies were picked up from other states, refined and tailor-made for the needs of Odisha, says Misra. “Pandian and his CMO team understood the ecosystem Naveenbabu likes to function in. To coexist with someone as sharp as him for 12 years requires bright minds.” In his view, since any attack on the chief minister, who also has a good personal equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, backfires politically, the opposition has started gunning for Pandian.

According to political analyst Rabi Das, since the chief minis­ter, at 76, is unable to go everywhere, he sends the man he trusts most. “Pandian has been given the mandate by the chief minister. I have never see this kind of trust, but once this bureaucrat says some work will be done, it will be done. He delivers.”

While the opposition wields him as a weapon against BJD, Pandian is busy touring various districts, meeting people and collecting information about people’s grievances, on the direc­tions of the chief minister who is preparing for the 2024 polls.

chief ministerIAS officerNaveen PatnaikOdishapoliticsPublic figureVK Pandian