Odisha: Majhi’s Rule at Crossroads as ‘Non-Delivery’ After 14 Months Creates Rumble

Going by reports as of early 2026, the Mohan Majhi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s performance looks a mixture of optimism built on the Chief Minister’s easy accessibility through grievance hearings and promises for people-centric initiatives, along with a sudden rise in law and order problems, migration and wanting health and education systems. These challenges stand in contrast to Majhi’s officially generated “self-back-patting” in the social media. 

Leaving aside the electoral victory that the BJP achieved by uprooting the 25-year-old popular rule of Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) Naveen Patnaik standing up to the persona of the Patnaik was a challenge for Majhi, the incumbent Chief Minister who is not only a novice but is also seen as a sluggish learner.  

Initially, Majhi was upticked as the ‘peoples’ Chief Minister for his interactions with citizens, but the euphoria remained short-lived as despair looms over many fronts in the past one-and-half years of his rule.

In particular, Majhi’s active or hands-on administrative approach has started showing signs of decline. Public sentiments have taken a hit because of repeat occurrences of atrocities on women, burning of girls and rapes and gang-rapes in many parts of the state. Some incidents were so horrendous that outrage was inevitable, such as  the avoidable incident in a famous university campus in Balasore district, where a girl poured petrol and set herself on fire in public after her repeated pleas to all concerned failed to elicit any response.

One of the most recent steps taken by Chief Minister Majhi was over pollution certificates for vehicles that was termed “draconian” for pushing thousands of people to queue up at filling stations for hours.

Reform Minus a Human Face

So brazen was the step that lakhs of vehicle owners were heavily penalised for having no updated pollution certificate and had to cough up a hefty Rs.10,000 to get a PUC or else were refused refuelling of vehicles. This was a never heard of step in the entire country. What seemed missing was a conscientious thought by the Chief Minister. It was as if he was being simply tutored by a few bureaucrats who hardly cared about a “human-face” to any reform.

Builder Mafia Nexus

“If AQI (air quality index) is a question then the Chief Minister cannot afford to ignore the enormous emission from fly ash and silicon particles due to the incredible increase in construction activities by individuals and the builder mafia, who are allegedly hand-in-glove with the government wings”, Ritik Pramanik, a political commentator, told this writer.

What is visibly disturbing is the proportion of construction compared with the merciless felling of trees and residual forest patches.

The proportion is alarming and scary, as it stands at 77% urban concrete, and a mere 23% green cover that is “gasping for breath”, said Biswajit Mohanty, a well-known environmental activist.

Over 7,800 trees were felled in the capital city, Bhubaneswar, between 2019-20 and 2022-23 for various development projects.

Research done by IIT Bhubaneswar indicates that rapid urbanisation and land-use changes have resulted in a massive decrease of roughly 89% in dense vegetation, contributing to a 1.8°C increase in temperature and pollution compared with the surrounding areas.

Prior to all this, Majhi, as Chief Minister, had to abandon the proposed first-in-the-country three-fold hike in the salary of all the 147 MLAs through a legislation, which is reportedly still awaiting the Governors’ approval. But that could not help rising eyebrows, given the dire state of the Odisha’s finances,

Like his political masters at the central level, Majhi is also toeing the line of change in colour rather than content, as his governance model shows for now.      

By August 2025, within 14 months of governance, surveys placed Majhi among the top 10 performing Chief Ministers in India, with roughly 34% of people in the state approving of his performance. But many in the Opposition say that such figures are often fudged for political gains.

Now, Majhi’s power ministry is dangling another weapon -- smart meters for Tata regulated power distribution at a cost of Rs.6,000 crore from the State exchequer.

When asked by the media what the urgency was behind changing meters at such a huge cost, neither the state power minister nor the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) chose to explain.   

In addition, the eyesore that laces the capital city are the uncountable number of hoardings and posters at junctions or crossings that depict larger than life sized cutouts of Majhi, dwarfing essentials like road indicators.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha, with over 40 years’ experience in the profession.