Bhubaneswar: Reiterating Home Minister Amit Shah’s reading into Naveen Patnaik’s decision to fight from two Assembly seats in the upcoming elections in Odisha, former Odisha BJP president Samir Mohanty on Friday said that the CM wants to pave the way for his successor by contesting both from Hinjli and Kantabanji.
Alleging rampant corruption under the BJD government’s 5T initiative, Samir said that this is well-calibrated strategy of the BJD to ensure backdoor entry of 5T Chairman V K Pandian to help him take over the reins of governance in Odisha. “Naveen will vacate one of these seats and put up Pandian from there in the by-election. People of Odisha will thwart this ploy of the BJD to parachute him to Vidhan Sabha,” he asserted.
The senior BJP leader also lambasted the ruling party for hurting Odisha asmita & swabhiman (pride) and showing disrespect to Jagannath culture.
Odisha asmita is one of key poll planks of the saffron party and it is also seen as a veiled attack on Pandian, who has roots in Tamil Nadu.
Pooh-poohing the allegations, BJD spokesperson Sulata Deo attributed these statements to BJP’s fear of a crushing defeat in the upcoming elections. “2024 elections will be a repeat of 2019 and it seems they have got an inkling of it because of which they are unable to think logically. Samir Mohanty is yet to get over the drubbing that the BJP suffered during his stint as the part president in the panchayat elections,” she said.
Deo added that such statements are products of BJP’s fake news factory.
On Thursday, Amit Shah had said that it will be wrong to construed that the BJD supremo opted for a second seat for the fear of losing the election. “He will leave one seat for his political heir and get the person elected to the Assembly to stem any rebellion within the party,” he said during a crucial meeting with BJP leaders of 13 parliamentary constituencies at a convention centre near Cuttack-Puri by-pass road.
Also Read: Naveen Patnaik’s 2nd Seat A Ploy To Elect Political Heir, Amit Shah Tells BJP Leaders In Odisha
Earlier addressing the ‘Vijay Sankalp Samabesh’ at Sonepur Sonepur, Shah had also slammed the BJD for for ruining the Sri Jagannath Temple heritage by turning Puri into a tourist spot. “Let the BJP come to power in the state, we will improve the pilgrim town like Kashi Viswanath in Varanasi,” he said.
