At a relatively early age, she had risen to prominence in the nation’s capital when she became deputy minister for information and broadcasting. This, by itself, was no big deal. It became important only because Indira Gandhi was her boss and I & B minister. Shy, tongue-tied and new to Parliament — her ‘goongi gudiya’ phase had yet to begin — Indira left it to Nandini the task of answering parliamentary questions most of the time. The younger woman did so well enough and impressed the future prime minister. No wonder eventually Nandini served first as deputy minister and then as minister of state in the prime minister’s secretariat, as the PMO was then called. Interestingly, the word went round — and this is also typical of Delhi — that Nandini Satpathy was on a strong wicket because she was an ardent devotee of Sri Aurobindo, and the Mother at Pondicherry had commended her to IG.

Never the one to hide her pronounced Leftist leanings — at a time when to be left-of-the Centre was a recommendation, Nandini Satpathy stuck loyally to Indira Gandhi during the turbulent days preceding the first Congress split in 1969 and the subsequent general election two years later that was to bring Indira Gandhi to the pinnacle of her power. In a number of states assembly elections had to be held in 1972. In the wake of the glorious victory in the Bangladesh War, this turned into a one-horse race. The Congress won a landslide victory, winning 70 per cent of the assembly seats that had gone to the polls.

Orissa was not one of these states, for elections there were not due until 1974. Even so, Indira Gandhi took the opportunity to send Nandini Satpathy there as chief minister. Everyone perceived this as her rise and rise. And so it seemed. By 1974, when Orissa elections were in the offing, the afterglow of Bangladesh had faded. Both the Congress party and Indira Gandhi personally were facing hard times. But Nandini Satpathy, fighting stoically and single-handed, won the assembly poll hands down and began her second tenure as chief minister. Many began to believe that something of Indira Gandhi’s strength and determination had rubbed off on her. She was dubbed Orissa’s ‘Iron Lady’. That could also have been the start of her decline. For, after the imposition of the Emergency in June 1975, any Congress leader with a claim to a power base of his or her own was suspect. Moreover, to be a Leftist had ceased to be an asset and become a liability.

In any case, in 1976, Indira Gandhi eased out UP’s self-confident and ambitious chief minister, H. N. Bahuguna, first and then Nandini Satpathy in Orissa. They could do nothing except to bide their time. On February 1, 1977, shortly after Indira Gandhi has announced fresh elections, Babu Jagjivan Ram gave her a big jolt by resigning from the government and the Congress, forming a new party, the Congress for Democracy, and joining hands with the newly cobbled Janata. Bahuguna and Satpathy were the first to jump on his bandwagon. The rest is history. In Orissa power went back to Biju Patnaik, the strongman who ruled the state from his perch in the Central cabinet, and later became chief minister again. His son, Naveen, has been chief minister since 1998.

Before her spectacular comeback in January 1980, Indira Gandhi did patch up briefly with Bahuguna, who was happy to return to her fold. But no feeler went to Nandini whose years in the wilderness were aggravated by a nasty family dispute. One of her sons is an MLA owing allegiance to the Biju Janata Dal.

Nearly a decade ago I ran into Nadini Satpathy at Palam, and inquired how she was. She gave me a wan smile and said, “In politics as well as life one has to take the rough with the smooth.”

This could well be her epitaph. And one might add that she was both the symbol and one of many victims of Indira Gandhi’s distinctive style of politics.

The writer is a well-known political commentator