It was a clever strategy by the veteran leader, who literally begged to be expelled so that he could claim later that he was sacked because he raised corruption issues. The officer in question, V Kathikeyan Pandian, the Chief Minister’s private secretary, has been both Naveen’s strength and his Achilles’ heel. It is an open secret in Odisha that Naveen, who never had an appetite for looking after the nitty gritty of the party and the government, has outsourced the job to his trusted officer. Pandian is playing the same role that Pyari Mohan Mohpatra, the retired IAS officer better known as ‘Chanakya’ in Odisha’s political circles, played for nearly a decade before his ambition got the better of him in May, 2012, when he planned a coup against Naveen Patnaik that went wrong.