After several rounds of meetings in the last one month, the BJP and the BJD both announced to go solo in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha.  The BJD and the BJP were in alliance for around 11 years between 1998 and 2009 and fought three Lok Sabha and two Assembly elections together.

State BJP president Manmohan Samal said BJP will fight this election alone in all 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats to create a developed India and a developed Odisha under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fulfil the hopes, aspirations and aspirations of four and a half crore Odiyas.

Soon after the development, senior BJD MP and one of its founder members Bhartruhari Mahtab resigned from the primary membership of the party on Friday.  Mahtab, a six-time MP from the Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency, said: “I have sent my resignation letter to BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at 4 pm today.”

The veteran parliamentarian, who was awarded the ‘Sansad Ratna’ for four consecutive years from 2017 to 2020 for his outstanding performance in Parliament debates, said he quit the party as he did not get ample opportunity to work freely in the BJD.

Talks on pre-poll alliance were being held between the ruling BJD and the opposition BJP for the past few days.  Earlier this week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said in Delhi that BJP national president J P Nadda will take a final call on the alliance with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

Samal, in his statement, also thanked BJD president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for his party’s support to the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre on various issues for the last 10 years.  “We feel that the states that have dual engine governments across the country, make extensive development and accelerate welfare work for poor,” he said.

The BJP state president also claimed that many of the welfare schemes of the Modi government are not reaching the grassroots level, and the poor people of Odisha failed to the benefits.