Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will meet his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik on Sunday in what political circles here believe is a bid to drum up support for a non-Congress and non-BJP federal alliance.

The meet comes a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one-day visit to Odisha on Monday that is being seen as a virtual kick-off of the BJP’s campaign in the state where Assembly polls are to be held along with the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Naveen has been maintaining equal distance from the BJP and the Congress.

Rao, whose party won a landslide victory in Telangana in the recently held elections, had visited Odisha in May this year but could not meet Naveen.

Sources said after Odisha, Rao will visit Calcutta to meet Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi to meet Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav.

Rao will visit the Jagannath temple in Puri on Sunday and will stay the night in Bhubaneswar to hold talks with Naveen.

Naveen’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was guarded when asked about the trip. “He (Rao) is on a personal visit and no one should see politics in his meeting with our leader,” said BJD spokesperson Susmit Patra.

BJD sources, however, pointed out that after Naveen severed his nine-year-long poll association with the BJP he has been “very open” to the issues raised by regional bosses like Mamata or the late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which has warmed up to the Congress, has already announced its intention to contest the Assembly elections in Odisha, which has a sizeable Telugu population.

Naveen Patnaik The Telegraph file picture