BHUBANESWAR: With its convincing victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections, the BJP is setting it eyes on Odisha. Party chief Amit Shah will visit the state on April 10 to strengthen the party’s base at the grassroots, officials of the BJP state unit said on Wednesday. Mr Shah’s visit to the state assumes significance as it comes just after the party achieved a spectacular success in the recently held rural polls in the state.
Considered as the semi-final before the 2019 Assembly elections, the rural polls saw the saffron brigade coming second, next to the ruling BJD, leaving the Congress way behind. The Congress was the main opposition force in the state politics since 2000. After elections in UP and four other states, the BJP chief had said his next focus would be Odisha, Gujarat, Karn-ataka and Himachal Pradesh.
With 21 Lok Sabha and 10 Rajya Sabha seats, Odisha has always been in the BJP’s agenda since 1990 when the present Union minister Jual Oram got elected to the 10th Odisha State Legislative Assembly from Bonai. Two years later, BJP leader Arabinda Dhali became the second man of the party to enter the state assembly in byelections from Malkangiri.
When the party, in 1998, was riding high on the popularity of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and getting ready to fight general elections on its own strength in Odisha, it was coaxed by the newly formed BJD leaders to enter into an alliance with their party in the state to defeat the Congress led by Janaki Ballav Patnaik. In 1998, 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the party won 7, 9 and 7 seats respectively.
After the BJD grew stronger under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik, it unilaterally severed ties with the BJP just two weeks before the 2009 general elections. Taken aback by the BJD’s sudden move, the saffron party could not open its account in the 2009 polls. In 2014, the party however managed to win the Sundargarh seat where veteran leader Jual Oram defeated the Congress stalwart and two-time chief minister Hemananda Biswal by a slender margin. With the BJP winning 297 of the 854 Zilla Parishad (ZP) seats as against 473 seats bagged by the BJD in the rural polls, the BJP now sees a golden opportunity to take sweet revenge on its erstwhile ally.
