Ace political strategist Prashant Kishor has predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will see a massive growth in its vote share in Odisha in the upcoming general elections.
Speaking at the Hyderabad Dialogues organised by The New Indian Express, he also claimed BJP’s target of 400 seats is psychological warfare and the party on its own is highly unlikely to win 370 seats.
“If you are a BJP supporter, you’d like to see whether your graph is increasing in East and South or not. One can safely say that their graph is increasing. It may not immediately translate into a dramatically higher number of seats, but definitely this tally is going to go up.”
“From Bihar, Bengal, Odisha, Andhra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, the total tally of BJP vis-a-vis what they got in 2019 is going to go up. How much… I don’t want to make a guess, but it would be up by a few seats at least. What would be important to understand is their vote share will go up dramatically. In Odisha, they are already number one,” he added.
His statement made sense as it is speculated that both the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and BJP may join hands to contest the elections in Odisha. Though no conclusive statement has been made by either of the parties yet, there are enough hints that they are actually in talks to go for an alliance in the State.
So if Prashant Kishor’s claims are to be believed, BJP may get more votes and win more Lok Sabha seats in Odisha than it had got in 2019. But when it comes to the Assembly elections, BJP still seems to be a long way back to form the government in Odisha alone. Though it will definitely gain some more seats, believe political experts.