Bhubaneswar: A day after BJP’s landslide victory in Assembly elections in three major States, BJD Supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik dialed Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning and congratulated him for the victory of BJP.
The Chief Minister congratulated the Prime Minister for BJP’s victory in Assembly polls held in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, official sources said.
While BJP retained power in Madhya Pradesh, the saffron party registered impressive victories in Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
Meanwhile, politics in the State hots up over the election results. While the BJP is optimistic that these results will have a huge impact in Odisha and the party will form its government in the 2024 elections while BJD is not ready to accept the theory and said it will retain for a sixth term with a huge majority.
Addressing a press conference in Bhubaneswar, State BJP President Manmohan Samal on Monday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the highest popularity rating in Odisha and it will definitely reflect in the next elections.
The Prime Minister’s popularity rating in Odisha stood high and it would surely get reflected on the poll prospects of the BJP in 2024, he said.
Shri Samal alleged that the BJD Government was knee-deep in corruption.
“The Modi government has sanctioned nearly Rs 19 lakh crores for Odisha in the last nine years but the funds were not utilised properly. Almost 1.5 crore youths have migrated to other states to work,” Shri Samal said.
“It seems that the BJD has failed to understand the religious sentiment of Odias. The actual amount of jewellery inside the Ratna Bhandar has remained a million-dollar question so far. The Government is in no mood to reopen the Ratna Bhandar even after the high court’s order. This is the most insensitive Government I have ever seen,” he added.
Results in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are just a trailer. The BJD will see the full movie in the 2024 elections, he claimed.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Sarat Pattnayak, on the other hand, claimed the grand old party will oust the BJD from power.
“The Congress defeated a regional party in Telangana and this will be repeated in Odisha,” Pattnayak said, adding people have now realised the BJD and the BJP were two sides of a coin.
Senior BJD leader and MP Amar Patnaik asserted that the results will have no impact on Odisha politics or the electoral prospects of the ruling party in the eastern State.
“No state has a leader of the stature of Naveen Patnaik. The recent state assembly elections will have no impact on Odisha, according to my assessment,” BJD MP Amar Patnaik said.