Modi sitting in Delhi was listening to him
In the last Lok Sabha elections, BJP leaders raised the slogan ‘Aayenge to Modi hi’. This time Naveen Patnaik has already started giving this indication. There was an opportunity to flag off the Puri-Howrah Vande Bharat Express. Naveen Babu requested PM Modi to run two such trains between Puri-Rourkela and Bhubaneswar-Hyderabad. PM Modi sitting in Delhi was listening to him very carefully live. Patnaik said that he recently met the Prime Minister and had a detailed discussion on the proposed Shree Jagannath International Airport at Puri. He then said, “I hope that with the cooperation and support of the Prime Minister, this airport will be ready within 3-4 years and the Honorable Prime Minister will come to ‘Srikshetra’ (Puri) to dedicate it to the nation.” What was it then, this thing flew like a storm in the political corridors.
CM Naveen met Modi this month
This statement is a big blow to the efforts to unite the opposition against the BJP. Parties like Congress, JDU, TMC are busy forming an anti-BJP front. Naveen Patnaik’s statement also becomes important because the opposition parties are in high spirits after the victory of the Congress in Karnataka. In the past, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had also met Naveen Babu separately. The move was seen as an attempt to gauge the mood of the reticent Naveen Babu and strengthen opposition unity.
However, much became clear only after the meeting of Prime Minister Modi and Patnaik on 11 May. The CM went to talk about the airport project but soon announced that he would not join any third front and his party BJD would contest the 2024 general elections alone.