For the first time in his eight-year-long chief ministership, the Biju Janata Dal chief is facing the biggest crisis of his political career and a tag of an incompetent leader. Having failed to provide adequate security to slain VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati at his Kandhamal ashram and his subsequent failure in stopping the communal violence that has kept the backward district on the boil, Naveen is caught in a deep wedge as he is being pilloried by one and all. His condition can be gauged from a simple indicator — in the past 15 days after the killing of Laxmanananda, not a single BJD leader has jumped to his defence, which they normally do.

As the minister heading the Home Department Naveen should have been in the thick of things. Conversions by missionaries, which has raised the Christian population from 19,128 in 1961 to 1.17 lakh in 2001, kept the district communally charged as the battles between conversion and reconversion zealots picked up pace. Though it has remained largely peaceful, communal tension is no stranger to Orissa — it swept through the state in the aftermath of the killing of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two children in January 1999 by Dara Singh. In December 2007, Dalit Christians and Hindu tribals fought with each other leading to three deaths and burning of homes in Kandhamal. Minor skirmishes between Hindus and Christians started in June this year.

Days before he was killed, Laxmanananda received a mail threatening to kill him, but the Kandhamal SP ignored the complaint. When the armed assailants came looking for Laxmanananda on August 23, the lathi-wielding policemen fled. While Naveen ran short of ideas, the state police force, never known for its efficiency, simply crumbled.

Naveen claimed, “The situation is under control.” But the Congress and other parties, including the BJP, scoffed at this statement. “The situation is neither normal nor volatile,” was what Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said after a whistlestop tour to a couple of villages in the affected district.

As the violence did not abate, the Central Government became increasingly frustrated with the state’s response and fearing that the situation was slipping out of control, the Supreme Court asked the Patnaik Government not to allow the Kalash Yatra of the VHP.

Though Naveen ordered a judicial probe while showing the door to the Kandhamal SP, it was a case of too little being done too late. “For the first time, people of the state have realised how incompetent he was as an administrator,” said political commentator Rabi Das.

The people of Kandhamal who had fled their homes would like to return to their villages. But having lost all their belongings to violence, they now fear for their lives. The BJP is viewing him with mistrust as they see a clear pattern of Naveen gagging Sangh Parivar outfits.