Written by Ruben Banerjee

The scenes playing out in Odisha for the past few weeks are straight out of customary ministerial visits: sirens blaring, convoys racing, and senior officials waiting to receive the VIP with policemen fussing around to control crowds of curious onlookers milling around.

But then, the VIP visiting Odisha districts and creating more than a buzz is no minister. He is a serving IAS officer for whom officials are bending over backwards to roll out the proverbial red carpet.

That V Karthikeyan Pandian, of the 2000 IAS batch, is no ordinary officer has never been in doubt. As private secretary to chief minister Naveen Patnaik, he has always been seen to be extremely powerful. Almost invariably clad in a full sleeve shirt which he never tucks over his trademark tight trousers, the officer in chappals carries a weight that is totally disproportionate to his short and slim physique.

With Patnaik – in his 23rd year of uninterrupted reign – getting older and increasingly frail, Pandian’s influence has grown. Seen always with Patnaik in public, he reportedly controls access to the rather inaccessible chief minister. Most ministers and legislators queue up before him if they are to get an audience with Patnaik.

Pandian’s stature has further risen with his recent visits to the districts. So long in the media glare, mostly for his physical proximity to Patnaik, he is now in the spotlight alone. Pandian meeting, greeting, receiving petitions, and addressing people is big news in the state.

Besides magnifying his perceived influence, Pandian’s visits have rekindled speculation as to whether he is positioning himself as Patnaik’s political successor.

“Who after Patnaik?” has long been a subject of animated speculation. A bachelor with no children, what happens after the septuagenarian Odisha patriarch exits the political stage has long been an endearing mystery.

As a Tamilian by birth, Pandian is an unlikely candidate for Odisha’s top elected post. But his name has always done the rounds in political circles as a possible successor to Patnaik. Fuelling them constantly has been the bureaucrat’s apparent ever-increasing clout.

Besides being the chief minister’s secretary, Pandian – married to an Odia IAS officer – is also the secretary to the CM’s transformative initiatives (5T). Though no such department as 5T exists, many saw the appointment as a cleverly calibrated move to ensure that the comparatively junior officer can cut through layers of bureaucratic hierarchy and call the shots in projects and programmes of other departments.

His recent visits – to Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Kandhamal among others – are officially billed as attempts to hasten transformative action plans: from constructing a bridge across a mighty river to setting up a large medical college and hospital. According to leaders of Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Pandian is only carrying out the chief minister’s goals.

But not many buy into the official version. “Magic of Odisha brand of democracy, It turns a Democracy to Babucracy with no question asked…” tweeted retired civil servant Prasanna Mishra. The BJP – Odisha’s principal opposition party – has gone a step further, deriding Pandian’s high-profile visits, with leaders demanding that Patnaik should give a power of attorney to his secretary to officially run the state on his behalf.

In running the affairs – both of the government as also reportedly that of the ruling party – Pandian has walked a thin line. Though it has long been suspected that he calls the shots even when it comes to matters of the BJD, packing the top positions in the party with his handpicked choices, he had chosen to be cautious in keeping his bureaucratic cover.

But in recent months, Pandian’s profile is being more aggressively marketed for public consumption. Though BJD’s official social media handles are still careful enough not to give him any space, handles associated with the party like that of its social media head Swayam Prakash Mahapatra are brazenly publicising Pandian and his visits. Pandian is also increasingly featuring in publicity videos – like the one he recorded from within Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium praising the state government’s push to popularise hockey. The videos are thereafter slavishly amplified by the very many Pandian fan clubs that have mushroomed across social media platforms.

So, is Pandian the potential political successor to Naveen?

Well, the answer largely depends on who you ask. While the ruling BJD maintains it is business as usual, those in the opposition are convinced that Pandian has set his sights on a post-Patnaik scenario. Incidentally, his wife Sujata heads Mission Shakti – Patnaik’s signature self-help group scheme for lakhs of women who constitute his core power base.

Pandian is certainly making a power play, insisted a very senior BJP leader. But will he succeed? No, said the same leader. According to him, the IAS officer enjoys unparalleled power, but it is power derived from being close to someone else. “Derived power dissipates fast. Look at Sasikala. She vanished from the scene soon after Jayalalitha died,” the leader explained.

The most well-informed among Odisha opposition leaders are therefore convinced that the question of what happens after Patnaik is still wide open. Anything can happen, they say, while pointing out that many senior BJD legislators who currently are quiet given Pandian’s unmatched clout may not be silent in the future.

Attempts to reach out to Pandian got no response. A top BJD leader also remained tight-lipped.

There are also a few who suspect that Patnaik – one of the wiliest politicians – could himself be behind Pandian’s rising public profile. For the first 10 years of his rule, Patnaik had one Pyari Mohan Mohapatra as his closest confidant. But the moment Mohapatra threatened to become too big, Patnaik cut him down to size and threw him out of the party. Maybe, Patnaik is setting up the stage for such a surgery again.

One can only guess what is the truth behind it all. What is certain though is that Odisha politics, despite being very stable, is not shorn of intrigue.

Ruben Banerjee is the former editor-in-chief of Outlook magazine and the author of the book Naveen Patnaik.

This is a republication of the original article which was published in The Wire.