Why Sambit Patra matters beyond political TV debates now
At a press conference in December 2018, deflecting a question from a journalist, BJP president Amit Shah gestured to a man sitting next to him, and said, “Sandeep ji jawab denge... Sandeep Patra ji. (Sandeep ji will reply... Sandeep Patra ji).”
The party president may have mistaken the ever so mysterious Sambit Patra as 'Sandeep' — but there is no denying the fact that the 44-year-old Dr Patra has still emerged as one of the BJP’s most prolific faces, especially in the last few months.
So much so that the Narendra Modi-led political machinery has now entrusted him with a ticket from the Puri constituency in Odisha for the Lok Sabha General Elections of 2019.
So, who exactly is Sambit Patra — apart from a flamboyant spokesperson on television debates? And why is he important?
Because Sambit Patra stands for more than just Sambit Patra himself. He represents certain vital changes in his party. And our polity.
If you ask Sambit’s ex-colleagues from Delhi’s Hindu Rao Hospital about his past, they will tell you about a seemingly docile guy, both friendly and popular, who could apparently quote verbatim from the Bhagavad Gita. Intelligent and charismatic but calm, Sambit started with party meetings in the Chandni Chowk and Malkaganj areas, and slowly, steadily, established a closeness to Delhi BJP leaders — the likes of Vijay Goel and Harsh Vardhan apparently — eventually netting the Delhi BJP spokesperson position.
By 2012, he already had a ticket from the BJP for the municipal council elections. But by then, the erudite, stethoscope-wearing persona of Dr Sambit Patra, promising to fix the janata’s every problem — from naali to naadi (drains to pulse) — was vastly different from the man who now blatantly threatens to change the names of masjids or someone who habitually refers to Rahul Gandhi as a ‘clown prince’.
Yet, Sambit Patra doesn’t come from either a background of hardcore politics or drama — he is an MBBS from VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla, Sambalpur, and a Master of Surgery from SCB Medical College, Cuttack, Utkal University.
In fact, he started off with promise — those who remember some of the earlier news debates he participated in recall a quiet guy, popping his head out of one of those boxes on screen, with a smile on his face — a smile that, unlike today's scenario, didn't make you hold your head in exasperation, or worse still, leave you wide-eyed in fear.
Prodyut Bora, founder of the BJP’s IT cell in 2007, who quit the BJP in 2015, had this to say about Sambit to The Print: “He is now at best a rabble-rouser with a medieval mindset, but what can you say of a party that has Tajinder Singh Bagga as a spokesman.”
While most, including Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, believe that Sambit is basically an extension, or, better still, a consolidation of the BJP ideology, Sambit's transformation is akin to the party's itself in many ways — nationalism to hyper-nationalism to muscular nationalism.
Is his over-aggressive, oft sneering character a persona he wears when he is to appear on a television debate?
Is this a strategic image change to fit into the party's larger evolving ideology — a game plan of sorts for the Lok Sabha polls?
Or this is the real Sambit Patra now, someone who has discarded the quiet, erudite doctor persona instead?
After all, he did promise to fix our naadi (pulse) back in 2012. Maybe now, he thinks he’s got it?
I thank Honourable PM Sh @narendramodi Ji & @BJP4India President Sh @AmitShah ji & All the respected CEC members for reposing faith on a small Karyakarta as me to make me contest from the abode of Lord Jaganath - PURI#PhirEkBaarModiSarkar जय जगन्नाथ???? pic.twitter.com/k22aQNgxmb
— Chowkidar Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) March 23, 2019
Still, the Sambit Patra we see on television today appears to me mostly unacceptable. While discussing politics, he can get cuttingly personal — reportedly calling the Gandhi family 'Thugs of Hindostan' in a show. He can be overly ferocious in words — indulging in slogans like ‘joote maaro Rahul ko’, a statement he has apparently expressed his regret over, but which may remain in the minds of many. And, to me, watching him on political debates, he can often just be plain bizarre — including the moment when he reportedly leapt towards Sanjay Nirupam of the Congress during a show, asking to be slapped!
But here’s the important thing — Sambit Patra simply cannot be all that anymore.
As a BJP spokesperson, he had one job — to speak for his party.
To defend it at all costs and to attack the opposition, showing them up, leaving them red-faced and most importantly, tongue-tied.
And he may well have chosen a 'saam-daam-dand-bhed' way of doing that — going from being docile to aggressive to launching outright, bitingly fierce attacks that left his opponents literally speechless.
But now, with a political ticket for himself, Sambit must reign in his aggressive self and unleash his reputedly calmer and educated persona once again. His oratorical skills are an advantage few BJP leaders have. It is how he now utilises these which will mark the difference between Sambit Patra, TV fighter — and Sambit Patra, political hopeful.
I'm hoping, a political hopeful who will understand that he now must speak for all.