BJD to go solo in 2024, won’t be a part of Opposition front, says Naveen Patnaik

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday clarified that his Biju Janata Dal (BJD) will not be part of an opposition third front, which is being proposed to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Patnaik, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Thursday, said his party’s policy of contesting elections alone would continue.

“There is no possibility of a ‘third front’ as far as I am concerned. Not now,” Patnaik told reporters after meeting Modi. “BJD will fight the 2024 elections on its own. That has been always been the policy of BJD.”

Patnaik, whose party has offered support to the BJP on various issues in the past, said his meeting with the Prime Minister was to discuss “issues related to Odisha”.

Read | No possibility of third front as far as I am concerned: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik

“My discussions were mainly related to Odisha’s demands and the international airport proposed in Puri. As the (air) traffic at Bhubaneswar international airport is becoming more, we talked about the proposed Puri airport,” said Patnaik, the longest-serving chief minister of Odisha. “PM said he will definitely help in every way possible.”

Talks of the BJD contemplating joining a united opposition front started doing the rounds since Patnaik met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday. However, both leaders played down the meeting as a “courtesy call”.

“Ours is a known friendship, and we were colleagues many years ago. No discussion was held on any alliances,” Patnaik had said after meeting his Bihar counterpart.

Nitish Kumar cited his “very old relation” with the Odisha CM and his late father Biju Patnaik, and said: “Due to the Covid pandemic, we could not meet. No political discussions were held. We have good relations and there is no need to discuss any politics.”

In a bid to get all opposition parties on board to project a unified fight against the BJP, Kumar has met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi, Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee, and Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren in the past two months.

Political observers said the politics of “equidistance” has served Patnaik well in his over two-decades stint as the Odisha CM.

Rabi Das, a Bhubaneswar-based political analyst said, “He is happy being the CM of Odisha and has time and again made clear his political ambition does not lie in national politics. At the same time, he does not want to be politically isolated and thus hedging his political bets by meeting opposition CMs in case the tide turns against BJP in 2024 polls.”