With Puri corridor, BJD looks to one-up BJP

With the grand unveiling of the Jagannatha heritage corridor, Naveen Patnaik plans to undercut any gains the BJP may have in Odisha because of the Ayodhya event. Ramani Ranjan Mohapatra explains

- 

At a time when nationwide invites are being sent out by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony on January 22, complete with packets of akshat (sacred yellow rice) and informative pamphlets, a similar yet unique campaign is being carried out in Odisha.

A fleet of 8,000 specially designed vehicles, decked out with hoardings of Lord Jagannatha and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, are traversing every nook and corner of the state. These vehicles are accompanied by religious troupes and women offering rice and betel nuts. This campaign will culminate with Patnaik inaugurating a heritage corridor around the 12th-century Jagannatha temple in Puri on January 17.

Unlike Ayodhya, where a new temple complex is under construction, the Puri temple has received a facelift akin to the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir in Varanasi - with no tweaking of the inner compound.

The timing of the corridor dedication event by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in the state is strategic - barely four days before the Ayodhya ceremony and just three months before polls. Odisha votes in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections simultaneously.

The BJD is eyeing a sixth consecutive term in the state and looks to secure more Lok Sabha seats than it got in 2019. It bagged 112 of the 147 Assembly constituencies last time but lost eight of the 21 Lok Sabha seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its principal rival in the state.

The ₹943 crore temple heritage corridor, part of the ₹4,224 crore "project of the century" to revamp Puri's infrastructure, falls under the Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha scheme.

The project, which began in 2021, is overseen by V Karthikeyan Pandian, a former bureaucrat and Patnaik's ex-private secretary, who has since joined the ruling party.