Bhubaneswar/IBNS/UNI: Odisha needs a double-engine government and the Bharatiya Janata Party will form the government in Odisha in the ensuing elections, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday.

Rajnath who is on a one-day visit to the state told party workers at Nabarangpur that the BJP will this time perform much better in Odisha in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

He asserted that the BJP will form the government in the state with absolute majority to carry out the developmental work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Even the political analysts have come out with their analysis that the BJP will this time form the government in Odisha," he said.

Rajnath advised the party workers to take the welfare schemes launched by the Prime Minister to the people at the grassroots level and devote at least 12 hours a day to reaching the people and apprising them of the various developmental schemes of the Modi government.

The Union Defence Minister said he had an emotional attachment with Odisha recalling his Bharat Surakhya Yatra in 2006 which he decided to start from Sri Jagannath Dham in Puri.

Targeting the Congress party for betraying the country during its long rule, Rajnath said the people of the country had lost confidence in the Congress and asked the party workers that the message of the Prime Minister should reach the people.

The Congress, he said had laid foundation stones for several projects but miserably failed to implement them on the other hand whatever the foundation stones were laid by the Modi government during the last nine years have been inaugurated.

Rajnath affirmed that in 2027 India will emerge as the top three countries in the world. He said even the whole world is now admitting that Modi will give a good administration and take the country to its peak of development.

“We act on what we say," he said while referring to the abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the abolition of triple talaq in the country besides the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The Defence minister chaired the meeting of the core committee of the Odisha BJP and advised the party leaders of 13 Lok Sabha constituencies to prepare for the elections.

He later addressed two Vijaya Sankalp Samavesh, one each at Berhampur in South Odisha and the other at Baripada in North Odisha where he came down heavily on the Congress for betraying and cheating the people.

He said the Congress gave the slogan Garibi Hatao but in reality, poverty increased during its tenure while in the nine years of the Modi government, about 25 crore people were brought above the poverty line.