Bhubaneswar, June 10: The BJP seems to be making a determined bid to retrieve the ground it lost in the state in the 2009 elections which saw its presence in the Assembly being reduced to a single digit.

The party’s newly constituted state executive will meet tomorrow to chalk out strategies to face the coming Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

The enthusiastic response to the Sankalp Yatra, led by its new president, K.V. Singhdeo, has galvanised the cadres while rekindling hopes of the party staging a comeback. Singhdeo is clear about the BJP contesting the 2014 elections on its own strength. “We want no alliance with the BJD or any other party. Unless we project ourselves as an alternative, why should people support us?” asked the royal scion from Balangir, who has his priorities clear.

During the course of the yatra, which has covered almost half of the state, Singhdeo attacked both the BJD and the Congress, the latter mainly in the context of its alleged misrule at the Centre. But, his prime target seems to be chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

“There have been so many scams in the state, but the chief minister has been trying to divert people’s attention by announcing welfare schemes,” said Singhdeo, who termed the BJD’s campaign for special category state status for Odisha an eyewash.

The leader admitted that compulsions of coalition politics during the days that the BJP was in power with the BJD in the state had taken its toll on the party, whose Assembly tally fell to six in 2009 from 38 and 32 in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

State BJP spokesperson and its former president, Suresh Pujari, said the party had paid a heavy price for “coalition dharma” as the basic issues that it stood for got diluted.

“The Western Odisha Development Council for the economic uplift of poverty-ridden western districts was our idea, but people had expected an autonomous and strong council. The council that we have today is nothing but an extension of the planning and co-ordination department,” he said, adding that the party had also failed to address the issue of grabbing of tribal land by non-tribals which was the root cause of unrest in the state’s tribal belt.

Pujari said the party, which had risen after a long slumber of three years, was now keen to go back to the basics and reconsolidate its base. For leaders like him, the rupture of the party’s alliance with the BJD has also given it an opportunity to create a pan-Odisha image for itself.

“In the days of the coalition, we got limited to western Odisha and the tribal belt while the BJD dominated the coast where we had only nominal presence. The pan-Odisha image that we had lost because of the coalition is now being sought to be revived by our new president,” said Pujari.