Thousands of people left the election meeting place reducing the audience to merely a few hundred at Anandpaur as BJP star campaigner Sushma Swaraj failed to turn up at the meeting as scheduled earlier.
A huge audience had been mobilised by the party workers for the meeting. People wearing saffron caps with Narendra Modi’s sign for PM had started arriving at the venue since 11 in the morning and the local leaders kept announcing that Swaraj would be arriving soon.
Despite the scorching heat, the audience patiently waited till 2 pm when a helicopter arrived near the meeting place. But the people were disappointed to find only Biswabhusan Harichandan and two other State party leaders from Bhubaneswar descending from the copter.
When it was finally announced that Swaraj was unable to attend the meeting, the disappointed audience left the meeting place irritated and the faces of the local BJP leaders turned pale.
BJP Keonjhar lok Sabha candidate Anant Nayak, Ghasipura Assembly candidate Satyabrata Panda and Anandpur Assembly candidate Alok Sethy tried their best to convince the dispersing crowd but in vain.
As BJP Prime Minister candidate Narendra Modi is scheduled to address an election rally at Keonjhar on Friday, tensed district party leaders expect that no such dislocation takes place in this programme.