Apparently enthused by the stupendous electoral successes in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, frontline leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Odisha continued to reiterate their assertions one after another that the state will see a saffron surge and the party will wrest power from the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the 2024 election.
A day after BJP state unit president Manmohan Samal, party’s National Vice President Baijayant Panda, and Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi sounded confident about their party's win in the upcoming elections in Odisha, veteran leader and former MP Kharavela Swain on Tuesday predicted, “The BJP will definitely form government in Odisha in the 2024 Assembly election.”
Speaking to media persons in Bhubaneswar, the BJP stalwart said, “I am claiming it and you (journalists) just note it down. Many predicted keen contests between the BJP and Congress in the three states, but that did not happen. The results showed one-sided victories for the BJP. The same thing is going to happen in Odisha.”
As for the speculation about a possible BJD-BJP friendly match in the next election, the BJP veteran said that there is a huge difference between speculation and reality. “The BJD is deliberately engineering such speculations in this regard to mislead people," he added.
Replying to a question about the BJP lacking a leader of stature matching that of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the former MP said a chief minister candidate is not picked up when an election is around the corner.
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The BJP leader also predicted that the BJP is going to win nearly 100 Assembly segments and 15 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha in the 2024 elections as people have trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also observed that earlier the BJP leadership in New Delhi thought that the Odisha unit would not be able to give a tough fight to the BJD and hence, they used to hobnob with the BJD.
“Now the Delhi leadership has started believing in the Odisha BJP while the political atmosphere is favourable,” he added.