To contest Lok Sabha, Assembly polls alone in Odisha: BJP's state chief Manmohan Samal

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): Weeks after speculations about the alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, state BJP president Manmohan Samal on Friday categorically stated that his party will be contesting in all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the state alone.

"To fulfil the hopes, wishes and aspirations of 4.5 crore people of Odisha, under the visionary leadership of the Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, for a developed India and a developed Odisha, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest in all the 21 seats of the Lok Sabha and all the 147 seats of the Legislative Assembly alone," Samal said in a post on 'X'.

The Odisha BJP chief said that though the BJD government has been very supportive of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in various matters of "national importance", several welfare schemes of the central government are not being implemented at the ground level in Odisha.

"For the last 10 years, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party of Odisha, under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik ji, has been supporting the central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in several matters of national importance. For this, we express our gratitude to him," Samal posted on 'X'.

Samal said that the party has learnt from their experience that wherever there has been a "double-engine government", it has led to the acceleration of development and welfare work for the poor and the state has progressed in every field.

"But today several welfare schemes of the Modi government are not reaching the ground in Odisha. As a result, poor sisters and brothers of Odisha are not getting their benefits. We have concerns on many issues related to Odisha-identity, Odisha-pride and the interest of the people of Odisha," the state BJP president pointed out.

After the BJP state chief announced that the party will go solo in the upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the state, BJP MP Aprajita Sarangi reiterated that they will be fielding candidates from every constituency and will fare well in the elections.

"The tweet of the president of BJP in the state of Odisha Manmohan Samal has made it amply clear that we are going to the parliamentary election and the state assembly election alone. We will be fielding our candidates on all the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies and 147 state assembly segments and we will do extremely well in this election," Sarangi said speaking to ANI.

"I think there's a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of passion for work among the BJP workers and whatever has happened had to happen. I'm personally immensely grateful to all the party leaders for this right decision," Sarangi added.

Odisha has 21 parliamentary constituencies. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) got the maximum number of seats, followed by the BJP and the Congress. The BJD won 12 seats, the BJP finished a close second at 8 seats and the Congress bagged just a lone seat.

The state has 147 Assembly constituencies. In the last assembly polls, which were held simultaneously with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJD swept the state, winning 113 seats.

The BJP came a distant second at 23 seats, followed by the Congress with 9, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) with 1, and an independent candidate with another seat.