Cuttack, April 16: The BJD will commemorate the 20th death anniversary of former chief minister Biju Patnaik tomorrow in a grand manner to counter the Modi mania that has gripped the state during the BJP's two-day national executive.

The BJD has put up big hoardings and banners in the city to mark the event.

Commemorative meetings will be held at the party's state headquarters as well as at the district and block levels. The BJD will use the opportunity to indulge in mega publicity campaign with the message that the party supremo Naveen Patnaik's popularity continues to be intact. It will focus on the BJD's populist programmes, its achievements and the central neglect of Odisha.

BJD spokesperson Pratap Keshari Deb said chief minister and party president Naveen Patnaik would visit the leader's crematorium at Swargadwar in Puri, after paying floral tributes to his statue at Biju Patnaik Park in the city in the morning. Then the party's state-level function would be held at the party office in the afternoon.

In another development, Anand Bhavan, the ancestral house of Biju in Cuttack, is ready for being declared as museum-cum-learning centre to make it a major tourist attraction of the city.

Under an integral development plan, the heritage building has been restored for a museum equipped to display the relics associated with Biju babu. "The restoration of Anand Bhavan has been over, and it has been developed into a museum for the public. However, the date for its inauguration has not yet been fixed," Cuttack collector Nirmal Chandra Mishra told The Telegraph today.

"The culture department has acted on the district administration's proposal and started the process for taking over the museum-cum-learning centre and manage it," he said. Sources said the state culture department had planned to form a trust to manage the day-to-day affairs of the museum. The department had, in 2006, appealed to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to hand over Anand Bhavan where Biju Patnaik had spent most of his childhood days, so that it could convert into a memorial museum. Biju's two sons - Naveen and Prem - donated it on January 13, 2015.

Subsequently, the public works department had taken over the building which was in bad shape. The restoration had started a year ago after sanction of Rs 1.08 crore.