In order make ‘Mission Modi’ successful, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitly along with the Odisha Prabhari Chandan Mitra and the deputy Prabhari Arun Singh on Monday started a marathon consultation here on the issue of prospective pre-poll alliance with fringe political parties in State level for the forthcoming general elections.
The renewed strategic exercise is being carried out as earlier Mitra had faced stiff resistance from the State leaders to a proposal for alignment last week. The current effort by Jaitly was basically to persuade the State leaders about the necessity of an alliance or seat-sharing with potential regional political outfits to put up a united fight, check division of votes and garner more vote share in favour of the NDA to help Modi become next Prime Minister.
The discussion with the State leaders and negotiations with three political outfits that continued till late in the evening, according to sources, yielded results of hope of a possible alliance bereft of the Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) led by Pyarimohan Mohapatra.
After their arrival, Jaitly, Mitra and Singh held discussions with the senior leaders of the party to know their views and the political situation of the State vis-a-vis party’s strength and weakness. The Central leaders first held one- to- one discussion with State party chief KV Singh Deo, Biswa Bhushan Harichandan and Jual Oram.
later, the Central team in presence of the State leadership also held parleys with Ama Odisha party chief Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Utkal Bharat president Kharavela Swain and Samata Kranti Dal founder and former Union Minister Braja Kishore Tripathy.
However, there was no effort to have consultation with OJM chief Mohapatra for the obvious reason of strong opposition from a majority of leaders. later Patnaik, Tripathy and Swain said that they were hopeful of a pre-poll alliance with the NDA.
However, the seat sharing arrangement is to be sorted out. “We are keen to fight the general elections under the NDA,” said Swain, adding, “It depends on the BJP leadership for putting up a united fight against the BJD and the Congress in the State by drawing up an acceptable seat sharing norms.”
Realising the hard realities, the State party seems to be accommodative and still has an open mind on the issue of trucks with other political parties as the State organisation is not strong enough to cash in on the Modi wave.
“We are open to discussion with other parties in the interest of their party to reach our goal. We had the first round of talks with the central leaders today. After negotiation with other parties, we will sit once again with Arun Jaitly to come to a conclusion,” State BJP spokesperson Suresh Pujari said.