In a classic move which worked in favour of Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), Biju Janata Dal (BJD) walked out of the Parliament on the issue of no-confidence motion thus reducing the number of total members; leading BJP to defeat the motion with a higher number of the majority.
Though Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha and leader of BJD has always denied favoring BJP or Congress. He told the reporters in February, “That is not correct. We remain equidistant from the BJP as well as the Congress.” However, Congress claims “both the parties are hand-in-glove with each other.”
Niranjan Patnaik, President of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) tweeted after BJD’s walkout, “BJP-BJD’s “rishta” is clear as a crystal now. They think they can fool us with their posturing but their stand is totally exposed. People of Odisha will never forget that when it came to delivering a decisive blow to the BJP, BJD chose to walk out.”
Although Naveen Patnaik has never confirmed forging an alliance with BJP in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he is always vocal about his praise for the Centre’s schemes. He commended the Central government’s move on removing GST from sanitary napkins and tweeted, “Exemption of GST on Sanitary Napkins will positively impact public health of future generations & benefit Odisha’s Khushi scheme, announced in Feb’18 to provide free sanitary napkins to all 17 lakh girls in government & government-aided schools from class VI to XII in Odisha.”
Patnaik also met Prime Minister Modi a few months back but declined any talks on the alliance between the two.