Bhubaneswar: Ahead of BJP national President Amit Shah’s scheduled Odisha visit starting tomorrow, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and BJP continue to fling numbers at each other claiming to emerge victorious in the 2019 general elections with a thumping margin.
Though the BJP claims to upset the ruling party in the upcoming elections and has build a ‘Mission 120’ campaign with a target to win 120 Assembly seats, BJD termed it as a ‘pipedream’ while bragging that it will outnumber the saffron party by winning 123 seats.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stated that Amit Shah had set the target of 120 seats after analysing the political environment in Odisha during his last tour in July.
“We will win 120 seats out of 147 and both BJD and Congress can share the remaining seats among themselves,” said Odisha BJP in-charge Arun Singh.
To counter BJP’s ‘Mission 120’, BJD Vice President and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Surya Narayan Patro claimed that his party will clinch at least 123 seats in the 2019 Assembly elections.
Patro is hopeful that BJD will get nearly 95 percent seats in the coastal belt and perform well in Southern and Western Odisha.
BJD spokesperson Prashant Nanda on other hand quipped that Patro’s views are his ‘personal assessment’ but BJD will contest in all 147 seats and try to win all of them.
Amid the ongoing tug of war between the BJD and the BJP, Congress which is still struggling to set its own house right, has also jumped on to the bandwagon and claimed that it will win 85 seats in the upcoming elections.