Lok Sabha Elections: No deal with BJD; BJP to fight polls on 'Odiya pride' plank
BJP on Friday decided to go alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha as well as assembly polls in Odisha after holding several rounds of discussion for a possible alliance with the BJD. As per sources, the BJP leadership, after getting a grassroots-level feedback on the prospects of the alliance in Odisha, felt that an alliance would benefit the BJD more than the BJP.
Serious deliberations have been going on in the BJP for quite some time to explore the possibility of an alliance between the two parties. Sources in the BJP told ET that efforts were made by the top leadership of both the parties over an alliance in the state.
Ever since VK Pandian, former IAS officer and the close aide of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik joined politics, there was a murmur over an outsider taking control of the BJD as well as the state.
'Odisha Ashmita' and 'Odiya Pride' is the game play of the BJP in the state. Insiders told ET that there was a fear in the party that an alliance with the BJD would legitimise an outsider in Odisha politics. Apart from this, even though BJD has extended support to the Modi government in Parliament whenever it needed, there are several central government flagship schemes which are not implemented in the state. Schemes like Ayushman Bharat and PM SHRI have not been implemented in the state. The state has their own schemes, and it prefers to take credit for the same.
«Many welfare schemes of the Modi government are not reaching the grassroots in Odisha, due to which our poor sisters and brothers of Odisha
