BJP planning to ‘break’ Biju Janata Dal after Odisha Assembly elections, alleges CM Patnaik’s aide
VK Pandian claimed that the BJP would implement in Odisha the same strategy it had used after the state polls in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
Biju Janata Dal leader VK Pandian on Wednesday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party plans to “break” Odisha’s ruling party if it secures enough seats in the approaching state Assembly elections, reported PTI.
“They [the BJP] had a slogan of securing 120 Assembly seats in 2014 but failed,” Pandian, who is a close aide of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, said to reporters in the state’s Ganjam district on Wednesday. “They [BJP] have been fighting elections to win 50 to 60 seats…to break BJD [Biju Janata Dal] after the elections. This is their poll strategy.”
The bureaucrat-turned-politician alleged that the BJP was planning to implement in Odisha the same strategy it had used in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. All three states have seen defections after Assembly elections, resulting in the BJP coming to power.
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress had formed a coalition government after the 2019 Assembly polls. However, the Shiv Sena split in June 2022 after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde claimed the support of 39 out of the party’s 55 MLAs, in addition to 10 independent MLAs, and rebelled against the coalition. After more than a week of political drama, Shinde was sworn in as...
