Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was on Tuesday given a rousing welcome upon his return from New Delhi where he received the lifetime achievement award from the Capital Foundation Society.
BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was on Tuesday given a rousing welcome upon his return from New Delhi where he received the lifetime achievement award from the Capital Foundation Society. Much as it appeared like a reception, this was for the first time in last two years – disrupted by the Covid pandemic – he was directly reconnecting with the party workers.
It was a carefully planned strategy to tap the workers at the grassroots with general elections two years away. Party insiders said, the BJD wanted to celebrate the party boss’ 25 years in politics in a grand manner and used the opportunity in which every district unit was tapped.
More than 50,000 party workers from all corners of the State gathered outside the Biju Patnaik International airport to give a grand welcome to the Chief Minister. The atmosphere was festive with cultural groups, folk artistes, tribal dance troupes and conch shell blowers performing to welcome him.
The entire stretch was lined with people cheering him on both sides of the road.
He gave a brief speech to the party workers from the vehicle which he had used in 2019 elections. Falling back on his famous tagline during his campaign in the 2019 general elections, the CM asked them, “Apana Mane Khusi Ta. Mu bi Bahut Khusi” (Are you happy. I am also happy).
“This was an occasion to celebrate the supreme leader of the party and his achievements so that a political message is sent to the BJD supporter at the last mile. All other occasions in the past two years have been on some governance platform or the other. Today’s was a completely political programme,” said a leader in the know of things.
All ministers, senior leaders, MPs and MLAs were in attendance as Naveen started his roadshow from the airport to Naveen Nivas in his luxury bus. The air reverberated with ‘Naveen Patnaik Zindabad’ chants as he came out of the airport.The show of strength by the BJD also came on a day when the BJP Odisha in-charge Sunil Bansal was closeted with party leaders here to discuss strategy for the next polls.
Looking at how well-oiled a poll machinery BJD is, Naveen had revamped the senior observers list last month. Besides, he had also reconstituted the frontal organisations of the party. He will reconvene a meeting of the MLAs in a week to take stock of their poll preparedness, sources said.
The Chief Minister thanked the workers for their presence at the meeting place braving the rain. He dedicated the award to 4.5 crore people of Odisha and asked the party workers to do good work.
He also expressed his gratitude to the people of Odisha for the grand welcome and thanked them for giving him the opportunity to serve the State for 22 years.
