Bhubaneswar: Amid a changing political hustle-bustle over a possible alliance between BJP and BJD for the last couple of days, a new short video containing a brief conversation between CM Naveen Patnaik and his close associate Kartik Pandian that surfaced on the Instagram page of the latter warmed up the political atmosphere in the State.
In the 13-second video clip, Pandian was seen asking the CM about the bad things in politics. And the CM replied with only two words– ‘rumours and lies’.
The video showed–
Pandian: Sir, What is bad thing in politics?
CM: Rumours and lies.
Pandian: Thank You. Sir.
The query of Pandian and the quick two words of the CM assume significance in the current political scenario when the top BJD leaders are tight-lipped about the prospect of the alliance. The saffron front, on the other hand, rubbished the talk of alliance in Odisha saying that all these are the media creations.
On Friday evening, BJP State President Manmohan Samal refuted the possibility of any electoral alliance with the ruling regional party. He said that BJP will descend on the poll battle alone in Odisha. To a media query over possible ties, he said that there was no discussion held in New Delhi with the central leaders regarding the alliance.
A day after, Vijaypal Singh Tomar, the election in-charge of BJP for Odisha, also seconded Manmohan saying that no discussion was held in this regard.
“No one from BJD met me in Delhi and held discussions over the matter. Odisha is going to have a double-engine government this time. We are confident of winning over 80 of the 147 assembly seats in the upcoming elections. And when it comes to Lok Sabha elections, we are going to win over 16 out of the total 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha”.
On the other hand, BJD leaders are yet to come out with a clarification regarding the recent development.
The speculations of a possible alliance were doing rounds after the senior leaders of both parties held marathon meetings in State and national Capitals three days ago.
A day after the meeting of the top BJD leaders at Naveen Niwas, BJD general secretary (Organisation) Pranab Prakash Das and Naveen’s most blue-eyed aide Pandian visited New Delhi. A section of regional and national media had reported that both of them camped in the national Capital to talk further on the poll partnership.
