Is BJP eyeing 17% Dalit voters in Odisha?

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a roadshow here and with this marked the beginning of two-day BJP national executive meet. Along with the PM, party chief Amit Shah is expected to underline strategy for a big saffron push in states like Odisha. Here BJP has been traditionally weak. A meeting of BJP office-bearers had started earlier in the day to finalise the agenda of the executive meeting. Interestingly,  executive meeting is taking place here after the party's stunning win in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. BJP will focus on expanding its reach in politically important states like West Bengal and Odisha. They are key to Shah's 2019 Lok Sabha poll strategy and the choice of Odisha as the national executive venue highlights his focus on the state. Reason? He believes that the BJP can boost its prospects here due to anti-incumbency against BJD chief and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik has been in power since 2000. Declining fortunes of the Congress will also help BJP and an impressive show by the BJP in recent local body polls in the state and internal conflicts in the BJD have boosted its morale. Modi accorded a warm welcome when he arrived in the city with the party organising receptions for him at several places on his way from airport to the Raj Bhawan. Shah was also presented with a garland of 74 lotus. Interestingly, 74 seats are a reference to the majority mark in the 147-seat Odisha assembly. Dharmendra Pradhan who is a Union minister has  called Odisha a "laboratory" for the pro-poor policies of the Modi government. He hit out at the state government on Friday. The members of 16 families associated with an 1817 rebellion in Odisha against the British rule will also be facilitated by PM. The party has named the venue of its executive meet after noted Odia poet and reformer Bhima Bhoi. In other words, it has continued its dalit outreach who constitute over 17 per cent of the state's electorate. However, they have never been traditional voters of the saffron party, which is now wooing them and is not letting any stone upturned.