After forming Governments in four States recently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to have a big strategy for Odisha to oust the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD Government in the next elections.
Besides choosing Bhubaneswar as its next national executive meeting on April 15 and 16, the BJP is going to embark upon a series of programmes across the State ahead of and during this meeting.
BJP leaders, including Union Ministers, would hold public meetings and road shows in all the 21 lok Sabha constituencies. As many as 11 Union Ministers and 10 senior MPs of the party would address the public meetings and road shows, according to BJP Jan Sabha coordinator and State general secretary Kalandi Samal.
He said the public meetings would be organised to thank the people of the State on behalf of Narendra Modi for their overwhelming support for BJP candidates in the recent panchayat elections. BJP candidates won in 297 Zilla Parishad seats against their previous result of just 36 ZP seats in 2012, he pointed out.
Senior BJP leaders would directly interact with people and apprise them about Prime Minister Modi’s desire of making Odisha as the laboratory of development, Samal said.
Political observers feel the BJP high command is now confident that after humbling the Samajwadi Party in the UP election, the saffron party now can defeat the other regional outfits like the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Odisha.
The presence and speeches of Modi for two days on April 15 and 16 and BJP president Amit Shah for three days since April 14 in connection with the national executive meeting would itself a major morale booster for the BJP rank and file in the State ahead of the elections to the urban local bodies (UlBs) next year and the general elections in 2019, the observers think.