The Congress seems more worried over BJP stalwart Narendra Modi’s visit to the State than about the State’s ruling BJD.
This was evident when AICC general secretary BK Hariprasad hit out at the Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP national campaign committee chairman a day after the latter’s eight-hour visit to the State on Tuesday.
Modi, during his visit, refrained from making any political statement in public. He neither criticised the Congress nor the BJD and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Modi spoke all good things about Odisha and lauded the role of Odias in Gujarat’s economic development, besides paying garlanding the statues of Panchasakha at Sakhigopal and meeting Gajapati Maharaja and Shankaracharya and offering pujas at the Gundicha and Shree Jagannth Temples.
However, Hariprasad, who is the Congress in-charge for Odisha, on Wednesday accused Modi of dividing people on religion lines. He also charged him with being responsible for the killing of thousands of people in the 2002 riot in Gujarat.
“I pray lord Jagannath to give ‘Sadbuddhi’ to Modi,” Hariprasad said at a public meeting organised by his party at Salepur in Cuttack district.
Why the Congress is worried over the Modi visit to Odisha is well-understood, say observers. The Congress has been expecting that it will take advantage of the various scams hitting the Naveen Patnaik Government coupled with an anti-incumbency factor in the State.
However, in an event of the BJP taking share of the anti-BHD votes, the Congress, as the State’s main opposition party, may yet again be deprived of a chance to come to power and, in the process, the BJD may retain power for the fourth time in a row, observers feel.