Bhubaneswar: BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday said the BJP was sinking fast.
His comments have come in the wake of the BJP suffering a major jolt in the two high-profile Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
The party lost in Gorakhpur, the home turf of chief minister Aditya Nath, and also Phulpur that had been vacated by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
The BJD had defeated the BJP by a margin of 41,000 votes last month in Bijepur Assembly bypolls in west Odisha and an over-confident BJP had worked over time for a victory to boost its prospects in the state.
Reacting to the development, Naveen said: "The BJP is sinking - sinking quite fast." The buzz in the Bhubaneswar circles is that Naveen's comment aims to dispel the notion that the BJP is in the revival mode in the state following its creditable show in the last panchayat polls.
Asked about any expansion of his council of ministers, Naveen quipped: "There is no such thought."
However, the BJP has not taken kindly to the chief minister's remarks about the decline of the party.
Party vice-president Samir Mohanty said: "The BJP is ruling 21 states at present. Naveen babu's comments are like spitting on the moon. By making this statement, he has made himself a laughing stock."
Speculation was rife that the party, which won the Bijepur Assembly bypoll, may induct new faces. In the 21-member council, there are two vacancies.
The BJP leaders had claimed to be on the comeback trail in the state after winning 297 zila parishad seats in the rural polls held in February last year. Reinvigorated by the rural poll outcome, the party mounted sustained attacks on the BJD. The party questioned almost every move of the state government and sought to project itself as an alternative in the state.
The BJP made a serious bid to win the Bijepur bypoll, which was seen as the semi-final before the general poll in 2019.
Naveen, too, lead the charge against the Opposition and the BJD candidate Rita Sahu defeated BJP's Ashok Panigrahi by over 41,000 votes.
