By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 6, 2017: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah on Wednesday launched a frontal attack on both the Congress and ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha for having “no internal democracy” in their parties and accused them of being driven by dynasty politics.

“Everyone knows who will be next president in Congress after Sonia Gandhi. There is no confusion about it. I am the national president of BJP now. But, no one can foretell who will be next president in BJP. That’s because BJP believes in internal democracy while most parties including Congress has no internal democracy,” said Shah, addressing a meeting of intellectuals here.

There are 1650 registered parties in the country and barring BJP and communist parties, others impose family rule by killing internal democracy in the party, the BJP chief added.

“The BJP is the only party in which a poor ‘Chai Wala’ can become the Prime Minister of the country whereas one needs to be from the Gandhi family to become the Congress chief and you have to be son of late Biju Patnaik to become the chief minister,” said Shah.

On the performance of the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government in Odisha, Shah said, “It is running like a ‘defunct transformer’ while Narendra Modi is a ‘powerhouse.”

Shah dubbed Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government as ‘non-performer’ citing that better roads, 24-hour electricity supply still remain a distant dream for people in Odisha.

He said the Centre has granted Rs 2.11 lakh crore in the 14th Finance Commission, and asked for accounts of central funds allocated to Odisha.

“In the 17 years of BJD rule, Naveen Patnaik has failed miserably on several fronts and not been able to usher in development in Odisha. So far there has been only corruption. It would have been enough if he (Naveen) could have just learnt to speak his own language,” said Shah appealing intellectuals to throw the non-performing government out of power.

Shah earlier arrived to a rousing reception at Bhubaneswar as part of saffron party’s strategy to galvanize party workers to achieve the goal of winning 120 seats out of 147 in Odisha in the 2019 Assembly polls.

During his 3-day stay, Shah is likely to hold discussions with BJP MLAs, leaders and workers and chalk out strategies to achieve ‘Mission 120 plus,’ which he had envisaged during his last Odisha tour in July.