Puri: In an effort to make the organisation “poll-ready” for the 2024 elections, a training programme of Odisha BJP is underway in Puri with senior leaders voicing confidence about the party wresting power in the state by ousting the BJD Government.
The three-day programme, attended by party MLAs, MPs, district presidents and state office bearers, was inaugurated by BJP state unit president Samir Mohanty on Tuesday in the presence of senior leader D Purendeswari.
On the second day on Wednesday, a host of important issues relating to party ideology, national security and the achievements of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre are being discussed threadbare, a senior leader said, adding that the focus is on ‘Mission 2024’ with a target to win at least 120 of the 147 assembly seats in the next elections in Odisha.
Asserting that the state will have a BJP government in 2024, senior party leader and Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari exuded confidence that BJP will also win at least 16 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Noting that Odisha elected eight BJP leaders to Lok Sabha in the 2019 general election, he said the party is chalking out strategies to double the number in the next polls by strengthening its organisation at the grassroots level.
Party MP and former Union Minister Jual Oram has already exuded confidence of ousting the Naveen Patnaik government in the 2024 election. “BJD will be ‘thrown to the Bay of Bengal after the next election,” the firebrand tribal leader said.
“The fledgling BJD came to power in Odisha with the help of the BJP. After sharing power with us for nine years, it betrayed the BJP in 2009. The time has come to take revenge on the regional party,” Oram said.
Pujari said that the people of Odisha are aware that BJP can form a strong and efficient government but there is a need to train the party workers. This is being discussed at the training camp, the former state BJP president said.
BJP will prepare its workers for the 2024 elections and they will be asked to spread the party’s message to the people, he said.
Accusing the ruling BJD in Odisha of hijacking all the Central Government schemes, Pujari said the party will reach out to people with PM Modi’s welfare schemes and development programmes in the last eight years.
All the saffron party candidates, who had contested the assembly polls and the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from Odisha, took part in the training programme.
BJP’s Odisha in-charge Sunil Bansal is scheduled to attend the event on Wednesday, while its national general secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh will train party leaders in the state on Thursday, the last day of the programme.
“During the event, we are focussing on the 2024 elections. The party cadres are told to highlight the achievement of the central government and make people aware of the inefficacy of the state’s BJD government which has been ruling Odisha for 22 years,” BJP’s state general secretary Golak Mohapatra.
The party has already started its work for the polls since the day Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Odisha recently, Mohapatra said.
The party has recently appointed senior MLA Jaynarayan Mishra as its new Leader of Opposition in the assembly.
“Since the BJP is a cadre-based party, all members are also informed on the saffron camp’s ideology,” Purendeswari said, adding that making the organisation more people-centric is the objective of the training programme.
The training camp will have 15 sessions in three days.
