Naveen’s Shift to Congress Rhetoric Backfires in Nuapada By

Naveen Patnaik, the leader of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), has long maintained a distance from the Congress party while aligning closely with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Having come to power in Odisha by defeating Congress with the BJP’s support, Patnaik never forgot that history and remained staunchly anti-Congress. However, during the recent Nuapada by-election campaign, an unexpected shift occurred: Patnaik echoed the language of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

In his speech at a Nuapada rally, Patnaik repeated Gandhi’s national allegations of “vote theft,” leaving audiences surprised to hear such rhetoric from him. Political analysts point out that Congress was decisively rejected in Nuapada during the last elections, with the party’s president securing only 15,000 votes. In the Lo