Bhubaneswar: BJP president Amit Shah will visit Odisha on January 18, just two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled public rally in Balangir.
The back-to-back visit by the top BJP leadership assumes significance as it reflects the party’s unambiguous resolve of putting up a best fight against the incumbent government and wresting as many seats which could place it in a comfortable position to form the government once again at the Centre, and emerge as a principle opposition in the State.
Shah had earlier set an ambitious target of winning at least 120 of the 147 Assembly seats in the state.
If reports are to be believed, BJP has prepared a mission 123 agenda, aimed at winning as many seats as possible in the 123 Lok Sabha seats that the party failed to win in 2014 despite the ‘Modi wave”.
These 123 seats include 77 in West Bengal, Assam and Odisha — of which the BJP won just 10 in 2014. It could win only one of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the Odisha in 2014. The remaining 20 Lok Sabha seats were captured by BJD.
During his visit on January 18, Shah will meet booth-level workers in Cuttack on January 18, BJP general secretary in-charge of Odisha, Arun Singh was quoted by PTI as saying. He said Shah will hold five such meetings in Cuttack.
This will be Shah’s first visit to Odisha after BJP lost the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Odisha on December 24 and January 5. On Saturday, he is again scheduled to visit the state and hold a rally in Baripada.
During his visit, Modi will unveil projects worth Rs 4500 crore. Political observers believe that he will target the Naveen Patnaik government which has remained in power for 17 years now. BJD, on the other hand, will hold a mega rally in New Delhi on January 8 to press its demand for increasing the minimum support price of paddy.
At BJD’s foundation day function here last week, Naveen had launched a scathing attack at the Modi Government with a set of nine questions. He had accused the Centre of according step-motherly attitude towards the State and ignoring the genuine demands of the people.
The dates for the Lok Sabha polls and the state assembly elections are slated to be announced in March by the Election Commission.
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