Even as a three-day visit of BJP national president Amit Shah to Odisha was announced on Tuesday, the State’s senior party leader and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram reiterated his claim that many leaders of other parties, mainly the BJD, would join the saffron party during Shah’s visit.
The BJP informed that Shah would tour the State from June 22 to 24 covering three districts, Ganjam, Jajpur and Khordha. Shah would undertake booth-level visits to directly interact with people about the implementation of the Union Government’s pro-poor programmes, party sources said.
It may be noted that the three districts on Shah’s agenda continue to be the BJD’s bastions though the BJP made marginal gains there in the last panchayat elections.
Shah is also scheduled to visit the State again in August though the dates would be decided later.
Jual Oram while talking to reporters here repeated his claim that several leaders of other parties are “in touch” with the BJP and would join the party in near future. Asked for details about these leaders, Oram advised the media to wait, adding that some BJD leaders, apparently meaning Jayaram Pangi and some others, have already switched over to the saffron party.
Oram asserted that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is now facing a situation similar to the one in the erstwhile Janata Dal (JD) in 1995 when the JD disintegrated.
The intra-BJD conflict is now “openly visible” and many leaders of the ruling party “share” the sorry state of their party in private talks with BJP leaders, Oram claimed.
Referring to the districts which were not represented in the recent reshuffle in the Naveen Patnaik Ministry, Oram remarked that the BJD has already laid down its arms in these areas much ahead of the 2019 general elections in view of its disastrous results in the panchayat polls.