He is 70, and has a pacemaker fitted to his heart. He is also considered to be the brain that won Naveen Patnaik the third consecutive elections in Orissa, and consequently a third term as Chief Minister.

Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, the chief strategist of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Naveen’s advisor, attributes the party’s thumping win in the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls to meticulous planning and execution, and to the Chief Minister’s pro-poor schemes.

“You may have voters on your side, but if you can’t manage them they will not come to the polling station,” Mohapatra told The Indian Express at his Shahid Nagar residence in Bhubaneswar, where BJD workers were still streaming in, bouquets in hand, two days after the results.

“The preparation for an election should start as soon as one is through with the previous polls. I started planning for the 2009 election in 2006. But I was two years late. So I should start planning for the 2014 election from now,” said the former IAS officer.

The BJD won 103 seats in the 147-member Assembly. In the Lok Sabha polls, it won 14 of the 21 seats while its pre-poll ally CPI won one seat. The BJP, with which the BJD broke its 11-year-old ties just before the elections, faced utter humiliation as the party could not bag even a single Lok Sabha seat and won only six Assembly seats.

Mohapatra said he was always sure of the BJD’s victory though Naveen himself felt nervous at times. “I was sure that we would get not less than 93 seats as the Chief Minister’s campaign meetings were well-attended. Even Sonia Gandhi’s meetings in coastal areas did not have good crowds. I was sure there was an undercurrent for Naveen.”

... contd.