Bhubaneswar: A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party cleared air about its Odisha mission by announcing that it would go to the 2024 Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls on its own strength, the saffron party’s on Sunday claimed that it was capable enough to form the next government in the state without forging an alliance with any other political party.
“Our survey shows that the BJP is gaining popularity in the state with youths and women joining our party in large numbers. We will win at least 80 of the 147 assembly seats in Odisha. Similarly, we are eyeing to bag at least 16 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats here,” said party’s central leader Vijay Pal Singh Tomar.
Tomar, who is BJP’s co-incharge for Odisha, has been camping in the state along with central leaders BL Santosh and Sunil Bansal for three days now, to chalk out a strategy to dislodge the Naveen Patnaik government that has been in power for 24 hours now. The three central leaders held several rounds of talks with party’s state leaders as well as office-bearers of different wings in the past three days.
“The ruling BJD has been hugely unpopular in the state because of large-scale corruption, nepotism and atrocities on women. The youths and women have made up their mind to oust the BJD from power here and establish the BJP’s double-engine government,” said Tomar.
To a query, he said the BJD has deliberately spread a rumour about a possible coalition with the BJP only to create confusion among voters to ward off its diminishing vote base.
“The BJD has already sensed that its support base is fast eroding and the BJP is gaining the faith and confidence of the people. That’s why it is spreading rumours to create confusion among voters,” said Singh.
The BJP leader took an indirect swipe at V Karthikeyan Pandian, a Tamil bureaucrat-turned BJD politician who is now controlling the state administration saying the state was now being run by a “Super Chief Minister.”
“Everybody knows that the state is now being ruled by the Super Chief Minister. People dislike it and they would give a befitting reply to this kind of behaviour,” said Singh.
Speaking on the occasion, BJP state president Manmohan Samal said if the BJP comes to power in the state in 2024, it would promulgate an ordinance to return the money of duped chit fund depositors to return their money in just 24 hours.
“We will also try to ensure that the farmer’s income in the state is doubled and they get all sorts of required support,” said Samal.
