Bhubaneswar: The BJP continues to focus on Odisha where it hopes to make major gains in the 2019 elections.

The extraordinary importance being attached to the state is evident from the fact that two senior-most leaders of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are scheduled to visit it this month.

While the Prime Minister would be visiting the state on September 22 to inaugurate the much-awaited Jharsuguda airport, BJP president Amit Shah will address the Mahila Morcha Rashtriya Maha Adhiveshan of the party in Puri two days later.

Both the visits are considered significant as they are likely to impart momentum to the BJP's preparations for the polls. Sources said the Prime Minister, who had chosen Cuttack to present the report card of his government on its fourth anniversary on May 26, was keenly aware of the fact that Odisha was the only state in eastern India where it could hope to expand its footprints with electoral gains.

While the Prime Minister's visit is expected to consolidate the BJP's base in west Odisha, which he had visited in the past as well, Shah's focus would be on the coastal belt, where the party has only nominal presence with just of its MLAs hailing from the area.

"Shah's visit to Puri to address the mahila morcha convention should be seen from this angle. For past sometime, he has been anxious about the BJP's rather weak position versus the ruling BJD on the coast. He would like to firm up a strategy to change the equations in the coastal belt," said a BJP leader.

Last time, Shah visited the state on July 1 to review the progress made by the state unit of the party to achieve his "Mission 120+" in Odisha in the 2019 elections. BJD general secretary Bijay Nayak, however, asserted that neither Modi nor Shah would be able to shake his party's stronghold on the state.