Call it political or a strategy to play the ‘women card’, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s statement condemning the BJP leaders who made ‘personal attacks’ on BJD candidate Barsha Singh Bariha during the bypoll campaign, struck the right chords.

Naveen sought to reach out to the women and youth of Odisha as well as the intellectuals and fence-sitters with his strong statement. It will mostly hurt Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi, who made some ‘unexpected’ comments on Barsha.

With such a massive mandate in Padampur, Naveen sounds the bugle for 2024. Neither BJD nor BJP would want to go slow from here.