As part of his 110-day nationwide Pravas to strengthen the party organisation, BJP National President Shri Amit Shah came back to Odisha after two months gap and arrived in Bhubaneswar for three-days ‘Vistrit Prasvas’ starting from 06 September, 2017. Shri Shah was given a rousing reception when he touched down at the airport in the morning and was taken to the state guest house in a motorcycle rally.
BJP President’s first day was filled with meetings with national office-bearers and executive committee members, National Morcha office-bearers, MPs, MLAs, state-level functionaries, former MPs and MLAs, district BJP Presidents and district Prabharis. He addressed a series of meetings and chalked out the party’s strategy in the State for the forthcoming elections. After these meeting, there was a discussion with intellectuals from different walks of life at a city hotel in the evening.
Addressing a press conference at the party office in Bhubaneswar on the second day on 07 September, 2017 the BJP National President announced that BJP would fight the next Odisha Assembly polls alone. He also slammed the Naveen Patnaik led BJD government in the state for its incompetence, saying benefits of over Rs 4 lakh crore given by the Centre to the state had not reached the masses. Shri Amit Shah pitched for a younger leadership to run the state and came down heavily on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, saying backwardness and poverty continued due to his government’s misrule, inefficiency and corruption.
Shri Shah said BJP will fight the next elections in Odisha alone and there will be no alliance with any other political party. He also added that BJP would win over 120 seats in the 147-member assembly.
Asked how BJP planned to go to 120 from 10 it bagged in 2014, Shri Shah said BJP won over three-fourths of the seats in Uttar Pradesh after getting only 15 per cent votes in the previous poll. He added that the BJP had won 18 per cent votes in this eastern state and received huge support from people in the last panchayat elections held earlier this year, he noted.
Sharpening his attack on the state government, he said that people associated closely with the government were involved in scandals, including the multi-crore chit-fund scam and the mining scam. A BJP government in the state will ensure that no one involved in scams goes free, he said.
Shri Shah slammed the BJD government over malnutrition deaths of tribal children in Nagada in Jajpur district and the lives claimed by Japanese encephalitis in Malkangiri district in South Odisha. All these showed that healthcare services and welfare schemes had collapsed in the state, he added.
Shri Shah also referred to the incident of a tribal man, Dana Majhi, who walked over 12 km carrying the body of his wife on his shoulder from a government hospital in Kalahandi district after being denied a hearse a year ago.
Taking a dig at CM Patnaik, the BJP National President said celebrations on winning the best administrator award given by a news magazine alone was not going to remove backwardness. Odisha lags far behind then other states despite substantial central assistance and support.
Shri Shah said Odisha would be no exception to the BJP’s rise across the country as both the BJD and the Congress are on a decline. The BJP wave is sweeping all over the country and the same trend will be witnessed in Odisha, he said.
He said funds to the tune Rs 3,94,994 lakh crore, almost Rs 4 lakh crore, have been announced by the Centre for Odisha for various works. But required support from the state to implement developmental projects is lacking and people have not received due benefits.
When the UPA was in power the state received Rs 68,196 crore as it’s share of central taxes under the 13th Finance Commission and it had gone to Rs 1,84,070 crore under the 14th Finance Commission report implemented by the Modi government.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is not looking for allies in Odisha and will fight the 2019 Assembly elections alone, party National President Shri Amit Shah said.
On the third and last day of his visit on 08 September, 2017 Shri Amit Shah addressed booth-level workers at a conclave in Bhubaneswar.
Mission 120+ for Odisha launched
Mission 120+ is Shri Amit Shah’s strategy to bag more than 120 seats in the Odisha Assembly of 147 seats. As per the strategy BJP National President launched the mission and met around one lakh BJP workers from 36,000 election booths as part of the booth-level contact programme that he spelt out back in July.
Noteworthy, towards Mission 120+, the party has already enrolled about 4,000 active volunteers to work full time on election-related work. Each full-timer is being assigned nine booths in a constituency and tasked with creating a winnable environment for the party.