Patnaik returns as BJD chief for the 9th time

Former five-term Chief Minister of Odisha and veteran politician Naveen Patnaik on Saturday returned as president of the Biju Janata Dal for the ninth time in a row.

The sole BJD cadre to file a nomination for the election of the party chief, Patnaik was declared elected by organisational election returning officer PK Deb at a state council meeting in Sankha Bhawan today. Sankha Bhawan is the BJD headquarters in Bhubaneshwar.

The election signalled Patnaik's willingness to lead the BJD which was decimated in the 2024 Odisha elections falling to 51 MLAs in a 145-member House. The BJD was wiped out of the Lok Sabha with the BJP winning 20 of the 21 seats in Odisha and Congress taking the last.

"We lost the last Assembly elections by a narrow margin even though we won more popular votes. our party got more votes. This is because we couldn't effectively counter the false narrative. Creating a false narrative is the main strategy against the BJD. We should be aggressive in exposing this, especially on social media," Patnaik, 78, said after being elected.

Also the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, he urged cadres to boost social media presence.

"Technology should be used to tell the truth and the facts, and without technology, we cannot reach out to people," Patnaik said, continuing a long innings that began in 1997 when he took the political plunge following his father Biju Patnaik's death.