Will Modi-Patnaik solemnise marriage of BJP & BJD?
PM Narendra Modi with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik (Image credit X PMO)
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, March 20: The alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) may be seen as politically strange if the leadership of the two parties pull through the protracted seat negotiations. The difference between the BJP and the BJD had been too narrow in the last elections, of just about three per cent, and the buzz is gaining further intensity of an impending announcement of the tie-up.
If the possible alliance of the BJP-BJD is extrapolated to the telecom sector, it may amount to Jio and Bharti Airtel joining hands to unveil a single-entity controlled sector as other rivals are almost on death beds. The BJP and the BJD together had polled almost 82 per cent of the votes cast in the last elections in Odisha.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is 77 years old. He is on the cusp of creating history as he seeks the record sixth term in office after already spending 24 years at the helm of affairs in Bhubaneswar.
VK Pandian, the man Friday of Patnaik, holds Cabinet rank while almost running the affairs of the BJD. The party leaders claim that he is the boss of the party as Patnaik remains inaccessible to even the Lok Sabha MPs as well as ministers. Pandian has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Odisha Chief Minister have a special relationship, and they don’t need each other to maintain their existing positions (in offices). Yet, Pandian has said that the big leaders of the country want to come together for a bigger cause.
Pandian’s statement came on a day when the Odisha unit chief of the BJP Manmohan Samal left for the national capital yesterday. Earlier, he had to delete a tweet wherein he had said that the BJP would contest the Lok Sabha elections in Odisha on its own. Also, the BJP top brass, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah and the party president Jagat Prakash Nadda, went into a huddle with Modi late in the evening yesterday. Afterwards, they returned to the BJP headquarters around midnight to hold the meeting of the core group of the party.
The BJP had won eight Lok Sabha seats from Odisha in 2019, and now the party is hoping to get 12-15 seats in a pact with the BJD to bolster the strength of the saffron outfit in the lower House of parliament. Patnaik needs the BJP on his side to stay at length from the possibility of the Congress springing Telangana like surprise in the state by coming alive from the state of coma of several years.
Modi is up against an incumbency factor of 10 years. His predecessor, Manmohan Singh, heading the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, was also blown away after 10 years of stint in New Delhi. Patnaik has logged in 24 years. Both may be seen in same boat where they need extra cover of security to weather surprises of elections.
Subscribe: youtube.com/ @TheRaiainsHills
Join: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaFAp9b60eBiuA8v1x0s
About The Author
