BHUBANESWAR: The BJP is planning to organise rallies in different parts of the State from next month for the 2019 elections, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi kick-starts the party’s campaign in Odisha from Khurda on December 24.
“We are planning to organise 5 to 6 public meetings which will be addressed by the Prime Minister, party president Amit Shah and other top leaders of BJP, including Union Ministers. Each of the meetings will be held at a location that will cover at least 3 to 4 Parliamentary constituencies,” sources in the BJP said.
As the party decided to launch a month-long ‘Parivartan Yatra’ across the State from January 1, plans are afoot to hold at least two massive rallies during the campaign to boost the morale of party workers, sources added.
The venues of the proposed public meeting and list of star campaigners who will address the rallies will be finalised in consultation with national leadership. Top functionaries of the party, including State BJP president Basant Panda and organising secretary Manas Mohanty, are scheduled to meet Shah in Delhi on December 13. The meeting is likely to be attended by two Union Ministers from the State, Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan.
Though Panda said the meeting with Shah is a routine one where organisational issues will be discussed, informed sources in the party said electoral strategy for the upcoming elections will be discussed, particularly in the contest of the party’s debacle in the Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland. Meanwhile, the party is undertaking ‘Jan Paramarsa Yatra’ across the State as part of its series of public contact programme ahead of the next elections. The objective of the yatra is to collect views of people on the welfare and developmental programmes of the Modi Government at the Centre. Earlier, the party had conducted ‘Lok Sampark Yatra’ at village and panchayat levels from November 1 to 30 to highlight the achievements of NDA Government at the Centre.