Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, top dignitaries besides people from various walks of life extended greetings to the Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on his birthday on Saturday.
Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to extend greetings to Patnaik. “Greetings to Shri Naveen Patnaik Ji on his birthday. I pray that he is blessed with a long and healthy life in service of the people”, Modi tweeted.
International Sand Artist & Padma Shri Awardee Sudarshan Pattnaik greeted CM in a sand sculpture in Puri beach
It’s pertinent to note here that Patnaik had earlier decided not to celebrate his birthday in view of the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the state. The Chief Minister’s Office released a statement in this regard yesterday.
This will be the fourth consecutive year when the BJD supremo will give his birthday celebrations a miss. He did not allow any function on his birth anniversary last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patnaik had chosen not to celebrate the occasion in 2019 due to Cyclone Fani and also in 2018 owing to Cyclone Titli. Both the storms had battered Odisha.
“Patnaik did not want to celebrate his birthday as people of the state are going through a very difficult situation due to the pandemic”, the CMO said on Friday.
The chief minister had also given his birthday celebrations a miss in 2016 as a mark of solidarity with the jawans killed in the Uri terror attack and in 2013 and 2014 when Odisha was hit by cyclonic storms Phailin and Hudhud respectively.
Patnaik, who led the party to a thumping victory for the record fifth time in a row in 2019, joined the elite league of chief ministers- late Jyoti Basu of West Bengal and Pawan Chamling of Sikkim- who ruled their States for fifth consecutive terms.
Naveen Patnaik had kept his aura of invincibility intact in Odisha with his party, BJD, winning two-thirds majority in the 2019 Assembly polls.