At a time when starting from BJD president Naveen Patnaik and other leaders are searching for the faults that caused the party’s poll debacle, party leader Pradeep Majhi, who was fielded from the Nabarangpur Lok Sabha seat, opened up about what caused such a drubbing. During a discussion with OTV’s Swadhin Rout, Majhi revealed that BJD failed to build a strong narrative that could resonate with the people of Odisha.
“We were not as offensive against the BJP as we were in 2009, 2014 and 2019. It sent out a message that the BJD was not able to shout slogans against the BJP to send its candidates to the Parliament. On the other hand, the BJP carried out an issue-based political campaign in Odisha starting from the Prime Minister to other senior leaders. And their attack was so forceful that we failed to defend,” said Majhi.
When asked about the dominance by VK Pandian, he said, “In the election, an Opposition party fights elections by levelling several allegations against the ruling party. In this case, we had to prepare with counters. Those who were in charge should have prepared a different narrative. Once upon a time, Congress had strong leaders. Now, BJD has such leaders. But they couldn’t be seen on the dais. If they had fought unitedly, the picture would have been different now.”
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Regarding the absence of BJD’s 38-star campaigners on the field, Majhi said, “The Chief Minister did meetings what was expected from him. Had the star campaigners travelled across Odisha, the situation would have been different now. But that didn’t happen and we had to face a debacle. Now we are thinking about how we can march ahead.”
“Naveen Patnaik has a larger-than-life image in India. There is none on the BJP side to counter him. The way he has lifted Odisha from the level in 2000 to 2024 can’t be countered, at least. In the past elections, the BJP failed to attack Naveen Patnaik. This time, they were looking for a soft target and they found it (in VK Pandian) and we were defeated,” he added.
“We were late in releasing the manifesto and announcing the names of candidates. My name was announced just three days before the election. I didn’t get ample time to reach out to people. It didn’t work in my areas,” said Majhi.