BHUBANESWAR: High on spirit following his party BJD’s recent electoral successes in Bijepur Assembly seat and two Notified Area Councils (NACs) in the state, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has dismissed any impacts of BJP national president Amit Shah’s two-day trip to the state on the future of his government.
Mr Patnaik, while reacting to Mr Shah’s “Mission 120+” (target to win at least 120 of the 147 assembly seats of Odisha Assembly) target for Odisha, said on Friday that such a claim was “boastful” and “exaggeration.”
“I think that is very very exaggerating,” Mr Patnaik said while replying queries by media on Mr Shah’s claim on Thursday at Bolangir that BJP would win more than 120 seats in next Assembly elections.
Odisha will go to Assembly polls along with general elections in 2019. On Thursday, the BJP president had said at Mission New Odisha Samavesh at Bolangir that his party would win more than 120 MLA seats out of total 147 assembly segments in Odisha in 2019 and form the government in the state.
In February, the BJD had dealt a body blow to the BJP when it won the Bijepur assembly seat in western Odisha’s Bargarh district. BJD’s Ritarani Sahu defeated BJP candidate Ashok Panigrahi by a margin of over 40,000 votes despite a high-voltage campaign by the saffron brigade.
As many as six Union ministers and all the senior leaders of the state BJP unit had canvassed for the party candidate.
It was expected that the saffron party would bounce back in the Attabira and Hindol NAC polls. However, the party managed to win from only one of the 28 wards in the two NACs. And, the results were out when Mr Shah was addressing the Mission New Odisha Samavesh Bolangir and boasting of winning more than 120 seats.
“I had not spoken about Mission 120 at Bhawanipatna and Naveen babu planted news in media as to why I was silent. But I had not spoken about it because I am sure we will win more seats here, much bigger than the mandate we got in Tripura recently,” Mr Shah had reasoned at Bolanigir.
