Lok Sabha elections 2024: No BJP-BJD alliance in Odisha

livemint.com:

Lok Sabha elections 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party called off its alliance with Biju Janta Dal (BJD) in Odisha ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, announced the state BJP President Manmohan Samal on Friday. Samal said that the BJP will fight all 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats in Odisha alone.

Expressing gratitude to BJD chief and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP government in “matters of national importance" for 10 years, Samal, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said that in the saffron party's experience, “double engine government" helps in accelerating development in states. Calling off the alliance, the Odisha BJP chief wrote in Hindi: “For the last 10 years, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party of Odisha, under the leadership of Shri Naveen Patnaik ji, has supported the Government of the Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji in several matters of national importance, for this we express our gratitude to him." However, Samal said, “Experience has shown that wherever there has been a double engine government across the country, development and poor welfare work has accelerated and the state has progressed in every field." He then claimed that many welfare schemes of the Modi government are not reaching the people in Odisha, “due to which the poor sisters and brothers of Odisha are not getting their benefits." Samal expressed concern on issues related to “Odisha-identity, Odisha-pride and interest of the people of Odisha", and said, “To fulfill the hopes, wishes and aspirations of 4.5 crore people of Odisha, to make a developed India and developed Odisha, BJP will win all the 21 seats of the Lok Sabha and all the 147 seats of the Legislative Assembly.