Bhubaneswar: As BJD, in a show of strength, took out a rally in Bhubaneswar after Chief Minister and party president Naveen Patnaik returned from Delhi, BJP on Tuesday announced the date of the scheduled visit of another top party leader to the state.
BJP national president JP Nadda will arrive in Odisha on a two-day visit on September 29, State BJP general secretary Golak Mohapatra informed.
With Odisha being a focused state for central leadership ahead of the 2024 elections, Nadda is expected to hold meetings with MPs, MLAs and senior party leaders to plan a strategy to achieve Mission 120+.
Earlier, state BJP general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan told the media that the national president would attend Prashikshan Shivir, which will be held in the last week of September.
BJP Odisha Prabhari Sunil Bansal is currently in Odisha and chairing the party’s core committee meeting at BJP headquarters here, while national general secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh is scheduled to travel to the state later this month.
These back-to-back visits have come close on the heels of Amit Shah, the BJP’s chief strategist, August 8 call to renew efforts to dislodge BJD in Odisha He had asked state BJP leaders to brace for the 2024 election without wasting time and achieve this goal. “There is not going to be any softening towards the BJD, and a clear-cut message has been sent to the party cadre,” he told party leaders here.
Bhubaneswar MP from BJP Aparajita Sarangi told the media that Shah has asked the state cadre to work hard and have a firm strategy in place for 2024. “We have been asked to strengthen booth-level committees and Amit Shah ji emphasised the fact that if the BJP can form governments in other states, why not Odisha?” she added.
Following this visit, Bansal was appointed as in-charge of the Odisha unit of the party, purportedly to strengthen the party apparatus in the state ahead of the polls. Bansal was the general secretary (organisation) in Uttar Pradesh and one of the major planners of the party’s win in the UP elections in 2017 and 2022.
