Bhubaneswar: Under tremendous pressure to hold onto his fort following the BJP’s strategy to make dents into the BJD’s vote bank ahead of the 2019 polls, - Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has finally pressed the panic button. On Thursday, Mr Patnaik, who is also the president of BJD, announced to hold review meetings regularly, beginning from April 2, on the outcome of the recently panchayat elections which marked the party losing seriously to the BJP in as many as 174 ZP seats.
The review exercise is seen more as an attempt to ward off the ripple effects of the BJP’s resounding victory in the panchayat elections and ward of the possible impacts of the saffron party’s national executive meet to be held here from April 15 to 16. The BJD leadership apprehends that the BJP national executive meet to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah might account for further erosion in the party’s vote bank. He also fears that a group of dissident BJD leaders might jump into the BJP fold during the national executive meet.
What worries Mr Patnaik the most is the growing dissident activities in the party forum and mass exodus of grassroots workers to the saffron party. The BJP’s well-thought out media campaign on the success of the Narendra Modi government, its contribution to Odisha and offensive on the alleged stagnancy and corruption in the administration has also left the regional outfit bleeding.
Repeated tweets by senior BJD leader and Lok Sabha member Baijayant Jay Panda saying the state had witnessed in the last three years “Congress-period-like” rampant corruption and goondagiri has also left the party leadership in the lurch. In his tweets, Mr Panda mentioned that the party was fast losing the trust and confidence of the people “who are getting attracted to the young leadership (an indirect reference to BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan) of another party.”
Although BJD spokesperson Amar Prasad Satpathy said the CM would only review the panchayat election results, sources said the whole exercise aimed at re-instilling the courage and confidence among the party workers and keep the BJP at Bay.
