OdishaPlus Bureau
Once bitten twice shy goes the adage. Unable to stop the Naveen Jaggernaut in 2019 despite a strong Modi wave across the country, the BJP seems to be redoubling its efforts to strengthen its grassroots organizations in Odisha so that it can take on the BJD in 2024 .The aim is to achieve ‘Mission 120’ in the next assembly elections. The party ended up with just 23 in the recently concluded elections – hundred short of the original goal.
State BJP leaders are still analyzing the factors responsible for the poor performance in the Assembly elections. But, there is near unanimity among leaders who met here on Sunday that the BJP failed to match the organizational might of the BJD.
The party will meet once again in July to work out a detailed programme that includes membership drive to give a further boost to the party organization at the booth level.
“As we were swayed away with Modi wave we failed to gauge the mood of voters. Overconfidence of BJP winning this election killed the spirit of the party workers whereas BJD workers worked sincerely till the voting was over,” said a party functionary who was present at the meeting. The common complaint of the BJP is that BJD used money power and government machinery to its advantage. But, some district presidents owned up the failure saying it may be just one reason for poor performance of the party.
They said the BJD workers proved their success by delivering the message of all welfare programmes of the Naveen Patnaik Government to the people while the BJP could not reach them with the achievements of Narendra Modi Government at the Centre.
Top leaders of the party, including Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, State BJP president Basanta Panda and party’s Odisha in-charge Arun Singh had an interactive session with district presidents and pravaris to find out what went wrong for the party in the recent elections.
It was decided at the meeting that district units of the party will chalk out programmes to keep the cadres engaged and ensure that the Central government programmes reach intended beneficiaries.
The party will meet once again in July to work out a detailed programme that includes membership drive to give a further boost to the party organization at the booth level.