After Bijepur drub, Shah refrains from ‘Mission 120+' rhetoric during Odisha visit

More than a month after ruling the Biju Janta Dal’s spectacular victory in Bijepur assembly byelection, BJP national president Amit Shah began his two-day visit to Odisha on Wednesday.

The visit of the party chief is aimed at boosting the morale of the cadre in the state.

The Bijepur bypoll drub appears to have made Shah more practical as he did not reiterate his ‘Mission 120+' for the next assembly elections in the state during his first public meeting at Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district.

The BJP chief's programme in the state has been confined to two western Odisha districts of Kalahandi and Balangir— part of underdeveloped Kalahandi Balangir Koraput (KBK) region of the state. Bijepur assembly constituency, where the byelection was held, falls under Bargarh district of western Odisha.

Shah’s western Odisha visit is being seen as part of the saffron party's effort to revive fortunes in its traditional base in those districts bordering BJP-ruled Chhatisgarh.

In last year’s rural poll, the BJP had swept these districts by winning zilla parishads, pushing the main opposition in the state—the Congress—to a poor third and creating an impression that in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party may make things difficult for the BJD and its chief, four-time CM Naveen Patnaik. However, this changed with the Bijepur byelection as the BJD won with a huge margin of 41,000 against its near rival—the BJP—despite the saffron party's best efforts to recreate its rural polls success.

The Bijepur drub party faced not only changed the political narrative of the region, but also dampened the spirit of party workers. A day ahead of the visit of Shah, half a dozen BJP workers joined the Congress, surprising many, as the move comes at a time when the workers of the grand old party are in fact switching sides to the BJD. On Wednesday, senior Congress leader and former Union minister Chandra Shekhar Sahu joined the BJD at Berhampur in the presence of the chief minister.

During his earlier visits to the state, Shah had expressed hopes of the party winning more than 120 seats in the 147-member state assembly in the next polls. This confidence, however, was conspicuously absent in his Kalahandi address. He merely said the presence of so many people at the event, in soaring temperature, suggests that the people in the region are fed up with the state government.

Shah lashed out at Patnaik government, accusing it of failing to create jobs in the state. He said despite the Centre allocating Rs 45,000 crore to the state, the chief minister is unable to ensure development in the state and Odisha lags behind other states in many aspects. “Odish has everything, but not good governance,” he claimed.

On the issue of the recent Bharat Bandh and ensuing violence which left many dead, he said those who resorted to protest despite PM Narendra Modi's assurance that the Centre will ensure that the SC ST Act is not diluted, should be answerable for the violence.

Shah met with party office bearers after the programme. On Thursday, he will meet with young leaders of the party in western Odisha.

In the meantime, RSS leaders held a review of party set up in different Lok Sabha constituencies of Odisha at Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.