10 sidelights of BJP’s Meeting at Bhubaneswar

The two-day National Executive Meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party began in Bhubaneswar on Saturday with a road show by Prime Minister Narendra Modi . The meeting, being held in Odisha after a gap of 20 years, is being attended by 13 BJP chief ministers, 98 permanent members, cabinet ministers and special invitees.

1. The Prime Minister was received at the Biju Patnaik International Airport by the Chief Secretary and DGP of the state. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik explained that he would not be meeting the PM because he was visiting the state for ‘political work’.

2. As many as 35 ambulances have been put on stand-by for the meeting which is being attended by 300 people and a large contingent of workers, media and members of the Sangh Parivar.

3. The Odisha capital saw mercury soaring on Saturday to 40 degrees centigrade. Fourteen sunstroke deaths were reported in the state in the last few days.

4. Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj is giving the meeting a miss following advice by doctors.

5. The venue has been named after Dalit poet Bheema Bhoi. With Dalits making up 17% of the population, the BJP is seeking to appropriate the ‘ saint poet’ and reformer with a following in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

6. Odisha has 147 assembly constituencies, 23 of which are reserved for Scheduled Castes. Only two of them had been won by the BJP in the last election. Of the three Lok Sabha seats reserved for Scheduled Castes in the state, the party had not won even one.

7. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is clearly the star besides Prime Minister Modi. The Yogi’s cutouts are placed prominently at the venue. While he is expected to tell the Members how UP was won by the BJP, media men have been busy cornering him whenever possible.

8. The Prime Minister is expected to felicitate descendants of 16 families who had led the rebellion in the state against British Rule in 1817.

9. Two resolutions, one political and the other economic with special mention of issues concerning the coastal states, are expected to be adopted unanimously.

10. The first day of the meeting was taken up with BJP leaders predicting that in the next general election, the tally of the Congress would get reduced to 20 and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asserting that questioning the Electronic Voting Machine amounted to showing disrespect to the Election Commission of India. BJP national president Amit Shah called upon the Opposition, especially Congress, to accept ‘electoral defeat gracefully’.