Baijayant Jay Panda, who joined the BJP earlier this week, was on Friday appointed the party’s vice-president and spokesperson. BJP president Amit Shah’s move to appoint Panda as a top office-bearer indicates that the party is keen to utilise him to improve its tally in Odisha in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. After the BJP was defeated in three states in the recently held Assembly polls, Shah appointed its former CMs — Shivraj Singh Chouhan (MP) Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan) and Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) — as party vice-presidents. Panda, who owns an Odisha-based media group, quit the BJD last year and also resigned from his Lok Sabha membership following his suspension from the regional party headed by the state’s Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. With the BJP aiming to win more seats from Odisha in the Lok Sabha polls — the party won only one out of 21 in 2014 — the party has been organising a series of programmes, including protest marches and agitations against the Patnaik government. BJP general secretary in charge of Odisha Arun Singh said the party will be taking out Vijay Sankalp Yatras from all 147 Assembly constituencies for a week from Sunday. “There will be 1,200 small public meetings that will try to expose the failures of the Patnaik government. He was in power for almost two decades. If he could not do anything so far, he will never be able to do anything. That would be our message,” he said. The Assembly polls in Odisha will be held alongside the Lok Sabha polls.
