Bhubaneswar: Odisha, on Monday, remembers the legendary leader Biju Patnaik on his 26th death anniversary. Biju Babu, as he is fondly known, always lived his life in the most unconventional manner leaving a trail of daredevilry. Be in politics or outside its ambit he was a cut above the rest.
Fondly addressed as a `maverick` politician by his critics, Biju Babu was much taller than a mere politician who always considered a risk as an unavoidable professional hazard yet he raced on his career graph as a daredevil.
Sitting on an armchair on the patio of his modest residence, Biju Patnaik had an obsession to focus his attention on Kendrapara which he had made his `Karma Bhoomi that gave him glorious victories and shocking failures sometimes.
Nevertheless, he had knitted dreams of taking Kendrapara high and higher as a sound hub of economy and politics as well. But many of his dreams remained unfulfilled such as jacking up the area as an industrial base for the people he was in love with.
Biju Babu can be remembered as the Godfather of Industrial promotions in Odisha right from Paradeep Port to transforming the parched bosom of Kalinga Nagar in the Jajpur district, into an industrial destination.
The Maverick Statesman
Biju babu is synonymous with the braveries that the legendary leader was capable of.
Regardless of what place was offered to the man, who had catapulted himself to the realm of fame with an aerial passion to fly high, floating through a maze of unpredictability, parleying the fame of a wartime hero, was a figure who could not be easily missed as an Indian politician of international repute.
Whatever the man did was always in link with his rare whims, which were far removed from the orthodoxies of that time.
As an ace pilot, he was unorthodox also, in his actions and ambitions, as an industrialist he had an unenviable penchant for being uncommon in his passion to lead the state from a slender industrial foundation to gigantic leaps, in which his strides were a mix of pace and falterings.
Cut Above The Rest
Biju Babu was known for his unconventional ways of doing things and this pursuit for decades had, perhaps, taught him that there is no greater victory than being with the masses. And this ultimately made him a mass leader than a mere politician. His visions, besides the state subjects, were far more visionary in essence. He was the man who tried to make economic criteria the touchstone of preference for backwardness, not mere cast.
He was way ahead in his thoughts to speak for the creation of India as loose federalism and it was he, who weaved the concept of fiscal autonomy for the states in the country.
Surprisingly Outspoken
He was astonishingly outspoken as a person who never chose hypocrisy as a tool in life to manipulate, also, he always believed that power by force was never worthy of his personality. Neither did he ever run agog in victory nor he showed the impulses of defeat. When he lost elections, he was only stoic in all his traits.
He was always a man who refused to be a soothsayer that the politics of those days even required.
His tryst with power- politics was short but his footprints were so long that, for the present-day generation in politics, a trace to where he wanted to reach remains a hard task.
