BHUBANESWAR: The organisational reshuffle in national BJP has ensured continuity for its established leaders from Odisha but has done little to create a new generation of national faces from the state.
Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda has continued to be the most prominent face from the state in the national organisation. He has been retained as national vice-president, a position he also held in JP Nadda’s team.
Puri MP and party’s national spokesperson Sambit Patra has also retained his assignment as the BJP’s Northeast coordinator. This gives Patra a significant organisational role across the eight northeastern states, where the BJP has steadily expanded its political footprint over the past decade.
Patra, though, has been a national BJP man for much of his political career. His engagement with Odisha politics had started just before 2019, when he first fought the Lok Sabha elections from Puri. He became a national spokesperson in 2014 after serving with the BJP’s Delhi unit. He lost from Puri Lok Sabha seat in 2019 but wrested it in 2024 and cemented his political connect with the state.
However, given the fact that Odisha has since 2024 assumed a position of immense political importance for the party, the lack of new additions from the state has surprised many. “By electing a record 20 of 21 MPs from the state, Odisha had been a key enabler of PM Modi’s third term at the Centre. It also won the Assembly elections by dislodging Naveen Patnaik to form the first BJP government in the state.
For the 2029 general elections, Odisha occupies a prominent space in the BJP’s plans. But, that does not seem to reflect in the new national BJP team under president Nitin Nabin as representation from the state has neither grown nor strengthened,” said a political analyst.
After Dharmendra Pradhan, one of the BJP’s most senior leaders from Odisha, resigned from the Modi cabinet under the shadow of the NEET-UG paper leak protest, he was also thought to be given a formal role in the organisation. Though, his political stature makes a conventional organisational post difficult under Nitin Nabin, who is considerably younger.
“A stronger Odisha team within the national BJP organisation would not only have enabled sustained focus on such a politically important state but also encouraged and motivated the local organisation as well as cadres. It would also have given Odisha’s leaders greater exposure beyond the state,” a source in the state BJP said.