Naveen Patnaik is seeking mandate for a fifth time in office. (FILE PHOTO)
Hours before the possible announcement of elections, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced 33 per cent reservation for women in ticket allocation for the national elections in his party, the Biju Janata Dal. Assembly elections will be held in the state along with the national elections. The dates will be announced this evening.
Mr Patnaik is seeking mandate for a fifth time in office. In the last assembly election in 2014, his party had won 117 of the state's 147 assembly seats.
In the Lok Sabha, the party has nine of the state's 21 assembly seats. The BJP followed close with seven seats and the Congress with five seats.
The longest serving chief minister in the state, Mr Patnaik is the son of the state's iconic leader Biju Patnaik, and formed the Biju Janata Dal after quitting the Janata Dal in 1997. Over the last 20 years, he has gained popularity for his clean image and transparency in government.
But lately, the BJP has made inroads in the state, closing the gap in vote percentage and edging out the Congress to become the biggest competition to the Congress.
Mr Patnaik, who had partnered the BJP several times at the Centre and the state, has lately maintained equal distance from both parties, offering issue-based support. But last year, he also turned down Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's initiative for a non-BJP, non-Congress Federal Front.
Over the last couple of months, Mr Patnaik's government has offered financial assistance to the tune of Rs 1,600 crore under the newly-launched Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (Kalia) scheme. Around 32 lakh small and marginal farmers and landless agricultural labourers through direct benefit transfer.
On Tuesday, addressing the first televised Council of Ministers meeting, Mr Patnaik said, "The four-and-half crore people of Odisha is my family. We have fulfilled promises made to the people before the 2014 elections and will continue to do so in future also".
He claimed that his government had met the aspirations of women, youth, slum dwellers, farmers and different categories of people.