The Bharatiya Janata Party’s two-day national executive meeting is set to begin in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, on Saturday evening. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to reach the city in the afternoon and hold a road show to the venue, Janata Maidan. Some 350 party members, including senior leaders such as LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Union ministers and chief ministers of 13 BJP-governed states will attend the meet.
The meet was earlier slated to be held in Lucknow to celebrate the party’s landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh. But BJP National President Amit Shah, who arrived in the Odisha Capital on Friday, is believed to have moved the convention to Bhubaneswar himself, with his focus on the 2019 Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly elections, according to The New Indian Express.
The national executive meeting was last held in Odisha in 1997. Buoyed by its impressive performance in the recently concluded panchayat elections in the state, BJP leaders at the meeting will discuss the party’s strategy to build its strength in Odisha ahead of the two crucial polls.
In the panchayat elections in the state in February, the saffron party was unable to win a higher number of seats than the Biju Janata Dal, which has been in power in Odisha for the past 17 years. However, the polls marked a huge victory for the BJP as its seat share rose by 750% compared with the last elections in 2012 – Of the 853 seats being contested, the BJP won 306 from just 36 in 2012, while the BJD’s seat share dropped to 460 from 651.
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