"BJP gearing up to contest on all 147 Assembly seats," says Odisha BJP co-incharge Lata Usendi

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], March 10 (ANI): Amidst speculations over the BJP-BJD alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Lata Usendi, the co-incharge of the Odisha BJP, reiterated on Sunday that the BJP will contest in all 147 assembly seats in the upcoming elections.
"I am saying it over and over again that the BJP is preparing for all 147 assembly seats; till now, there is nothing like that. Meetings are taking place because, without any meetings, how will we work?" she said.
Earlier, BJP Odisha election in-charge Vijaypal Singh Tomar also said that the party is ready to contest all the seats in the upcoming elections.
"We are ready to contest in all 147 Vidhan Sabha and 21 Lok Sabha constituencies. We are confident that the Bharatiya Janata Party will form the government here. We will win more than 80 seats in the Assembly elections and more than 16 seats in the Lok Sabha elections," Tomar said, speaking to ANI on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in line with the preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Central Election Committee meeting is likely to be held on Monday.
In the meeting, partners of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Bihar are likely to discuss seat sharing with the BJP's top leadership tomorrow.
The BJP, on March 2, released its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The list included 47 youth candidates, 28 women candidates, 27 Scheduled Caste (SC) faces, 18 Scheduled Tribes (ST) candidates and 57 OBC/Backward Class nominees.
The names of the remaining candidates for the Lok Sabha election will be discussed in the meeting.
The BJD and BJP formed an alliance in 1998. The alliance, however, came to an end in 2009.
In the state elections of 2019, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) emerged victorious in Odisha, securing 112 out of 147 assembly seats. Concurrently, in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJD managed to win 12 seats from Odisha, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) succeeded in obtaining 8 seats. (ANI)