No alliance with BJD or OJM: Singhdeo

The BJP will contest the 2014 elections on its own strength and will not seek the support of the ruling BJD or the Odisha Jan Morcha in Odisha, new BJP state president K V Singhdeo said today.
Optimistic of a better performance of the party in the next polls compared to 2009, Singhdeo, also the leader of BJP legislature party in the assembly, said it would face the elections on its own strength on its own development agenda.
The Patnagarh MLA was replying to a question on the likelihood of an alliance with OJM headed by Rajya Sabha MP Pyarimohan Mohapatra, who was expelled from the ruling BJD last year for allegedly attempting a coup against the Naveen Patnaik government in the state.

The OJM leader had said recently in Sambalpur that his party was not adverse to an alliance with the BJP to defeat Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Both BJP and OJM were part of the BJD government from 2000 to 2009.
While the BJD severed its decade old ties with BJP just before 2009 elections dubbing it 'communal', Mohapatra was out of the ruling party following his expulsion.
BJP and OJM have emerged as the main rival of the ruling BJD while the Congress is the main opposition party in the state.
BJP, which was part of the coalition government for nine years prior to 2009, put up a poor show winning only six of the 147 seats in the Odisha assembly. BJP candidates lost in all the 21 Lok Sabha seats last time.