BJP to reach 1 crore households in Odisha ahead of 2024 polls

Bhubaneswar: The BJP on Saturday said it would reach 1 crore households in Odisha ahead of next year’s assembly polls and Lok Sabha elections, seeking to make the state ‘BJD-mukt’ (free of BJD).

The decision was taken at a meeting of the BJP’s state executive, which was attended by Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Bisheswar Tudu.

BJP state general secretary Lekhashree Samantsinghar said the primary objective of the party is to free the people of Odisha from the 23 years of “misrule of the BJD government”.

The BJD government has failed in all spheres, including law and order due to which a minister was assassinated in Jharsuguda, she alleged.

Plans have been chalked out to reach 1 crore families in the state, and make them aware of different welfare schemes of the Narendra Modi government and “failures” of the BJD government, she added.

Samantsinghar claimed that the benefits of central schemes do not reach the people of Odisha due to poor implementation by the BJD government.

She said the BJP would put in all efforts to make Odisha ‘BJD-mukt’.

Among the issues discussed in the meeting were power disruption during President Droupadi Murmu’s programme at Baripada, the Mahanadi water dispute, and the Kotia border dispute with Andhra Pradesh. The meeting also took up issues related to the Jagannath temple in Puri, including delays in rituals, alleged improper management and the missing Ratna Bhandar keys.

Rejecting the allegations, state minister Pramila Mallik of the BJD said that the people were suffering due to skyrocketing prices of essential commodities.

BJP leaders should go to the people and ask whom they want to get rid of, BJD or the BJP, she said.

Mallik said the people of Karnataka have shown the way, and the BJP is on its way to lose its ground across the country.

Assembly elections and Lok Sabha polls are usually held simultaneously in Odisha.