Four days after he said this on NDTV, the Chief Minister and his partymen organised a massive rally propagating “peace” and “harmony” in Bhubaneswar. The 5,000-plus BJD workers carried photographs of Patnaik, captioned with the slogan “each bone in my body is secular”.

“We have to work hard to strengthen communal harmony among people belonging to different religions and castes. The state will progress if people from all religions and castes live together,” Patnaik said, as the party invited Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus to publicly certify the Chief Minister’s secular credentials.

Under fire from all quarters, Patnaik has been showing signs of distancing himself from the Sangh Parivar. In the same TV interview, he said he considered the Bajrang Dal a fundamentalist outfit, and added that half of the 1,000-odd people arrested in the state for rioting belonged to the Bajrang Dal and VHP. The BJD itself is rallying around Patnaik, who has found himself a lonely figure in the party. Today senior leaders like Lok Sabha MPs Prasanna Acharya, Prasanna Patsani and former minister Damodar Rout — conspicuous by their absence since riots broke — were present to lend Patnaik a helping hand.

The Sangh Parivar has been quick to notice the widening gap between it and one of its oldest allies. While the Bajrang Dal and VHP attacked Patnaik for his comments, the BJP too said his statements were unfortunate and that the Bajrang Dal was a “nationalist organisation”.

“It’s not the Bajrang Dal but Naveen Patnaik who is the real fundamentalist. He is trying to show his secular character by trying to implement the Christian organisations’ agenda,” said Subash Chouhan, national co-coordinator of the Bajrang Dal. VHP state general secretary Gouri Rath added that the Bajrang Dal did not need any certificate from the Chief Minister. He also said the BJD’s Bhubaneswar peace rally or the Congress’s in Phulbani this week would not help peace return to Kandhamal. “To restore peace, arrest of innocent people including tribals should be stopped and the CRPF withdrawn,” Rath added.

However, while the Parivar’s agenda sits uncomfortably with Orissa’s “suave, urbane” Chief Minister, Patnaik may not dump the alliance in a hurry. He is likely to wait till the 2009 Assembly elections, see how close he is to the majority mark and then make his move.

Rape accused sent for DNA test

The Orissa Police CID, which arrested the main accused in the Catholic nun rape case from Kerala’s Palakkad district, on Wednesday sent him to Cuttack for DNA testing. They want to match Mitu Patnaik’s DNA with the samples lifted from the semen found on the 29-year-old victim’s private parts. The alleged rape took place in an NGO building of Kanjamendi village in Kandhamal on August 25. While the nun has refused to come for an identification parade, IGP, CID, Arun Ray said they were hopeful of making their case. “The nun must be very scared and disturbed. If necessary, the trial of the case can be held in any other place in Orissa,” said Ray.