Rajnath to visit Odisha on Thursday

Bhubaneswar: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and defence minister Rajnath Singh will on Thursday pay a one-day visit to Odisha to assess the party’s preparedness for the general elections 2024 and address three political rallies to boost the party’s electoral prospects According to state BJP president Manmohan Samal, Singh will arrive at Nabarangpur in the morning from Chhattisgarh where he will address party workers and leaders. From Nabarangpur, he will fly to Berhampur in Ganjam district and Baripada in Mayurbhanj district and address public rallies.

Apart from this, Singh will also meet retired Army officers and jawans and later interact with party office bearers in the state capital Bhubaneswar. “It will be a one-day visit of defence minister Rajnath Singh and he will attend three programmes here in Odisha,” said Samal. 

Top heavyweights of the party are lined up to attend several programmes in



Odisha ahead of the polls. Earlier on February 13, senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had visited the state. He had launched a scathing attack on the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government and accused the Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik of “outsourcing” governance to a handful of bureaucrats.

On February 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sambalpur in Western Odisha where he addressed a massive public rally. The PM said the Union government had generously considered all the demands of Odisha and sanctioned adequate funds for the all-round development of the state. The saffron party, the second major political force in the state after the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is eyeing to capture power this time. The party has set a target of 80 of the 147 assembly seats and aims to win at least 16 of the 21 Lok Sabha berths from the state.