BJP chief Amit Shah’s Mission Odisha reins on 5 leaders

The national BJP president has set a target to win 120 Parliamentary seats from East and South where the party has little or no presence.

BHUBANESWAR: After laying out plans for his party to break the winning streak of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in 2019 elections, BJP president Amit Shah has engaged five Central leaders to realise his dreams.

As per the road map prepared by Shah under his “Mission Odisha” programme, the five leaders including three Union ministers will work in close coordination with booth level workers to consolidate the BJP position in the State. Apart from Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram and Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, national BJP general secretary Anil Jain will be in charge of four Parliamentary seats each.

“These five leaders will be point men of Shah in the State to execute his strategy,” informed sources in the party said. Shah, who had launched the booth level outreach programme in the State in July, will review the progress made in strengthening the organisational base of the party at grassroots level during his three-day visit to the State in the first week of September. “The party is sincerely working in 36,000 booths as per the plan laid out by Shah. Reports coming from booth level is quite encouraging and we are confident to meet his target,” Pradhan told reporters after the State executive committee meeting of the party.

The national BJP president has set a target to win 120 Parliamentary seats from East and South where the party has little or no presence. In the last general elections, the BJP had managed to scrap through one Lok Sabha seat in Sundargarh despite the Modi wave.
Though Odisha is a new terrain for Jain, he exuded confidence to win next election with a big margin. The national general secretary will be in charge of Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir and Kalahandi Lok Sabh seats.

The four Lok Sabha seats of Bhubaneswar, Puri, Berhampur and Nabarangpur will be under the belt of Javadekar while Pradhan will be in charge of Cuttack, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara.
Apart from looking after his own constituency of Sundargarh, Oram will be in charge of Aska, Kandhamal and Koraput. The remaining five Parliamentary constituencies have been given to Arun Singh.