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Suspense continued over an alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls, amid speculation that seat-sharing talks may have hit some last-minute hurdles. As the BJP state unit maintained its posture of going solo in the polls, a short clip of BJD chief Naveen Patnaik terming “rumours and lies” as the worst thing in politics added to the confusion.
On Friday evening, state BJP president Manmohan Samal following his return from Delhi said there was no discussion with party’s central leadership about the alliance.
“We had gone to Delhi to hold discussions with the central leaders on our preparations for the elections to Lok Sabha and the assembly in the state. There were no talks on alliance or seat-sharing with any party during the meeting,” Samal said. “We are confident of winning the assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections. The BJP will contest on its own strength in the state.”
On Saturday, party’s election in-charge Vijaypal Singh Tomar made a similar remark. “We will win more than 80 MLA and 16 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha. There was no discussion in the BJP about an alliance with BJD. People should ask the people who floated the idea of an alliance. We are preparing to fight on all 147 seats in Odisha,” Tomar said.
Party’s Bhubaneswar lawmaker Aparajita Sarangi also posted the news reports of Samal’s denial of an alliance with the BJD on her Facebook page, mirroring the pushback from leaders like herself as well as party cadres against the pact.
On Saturday evening, the BJD released a short video of a conversation between chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his trusted aide VK Pandian. In the video shared on X handles of few BJD leaders, Pandian is seen asking Patnaik about the worst thing in politics, to which the latter responds as saying: “Spreading rumour and lies.”
All these added to speculation that the pre-poll alliance talks may have hit a rocky patch, even as people aware of the matter in both parties indicated top leadership of both parties were largely in agreement of a pact, albeit some last-minute hurdles over the number of seats and the choice of constituencies each party would contest, especially prestigious Bhubaneswar and Puri Lok Sabha seats.
CM Patnaik had rushed Pandian and party organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das to New Delhi on a private jet on March 7 to meet Union home minister Amit Shah and railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in order to resolve the stalemate. The two returned to Bhubaneswar on Friday.
People aware of the matter said the BJD’s insistence on getting Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat, which is currently represented by the BJP, has thrown spanner in the talks.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won the Lok Sabha seat in the state capital for the first time with bureaucrat-turned-politician Aparajita Sarangi acing BJD’s Arup Patnaik, the former Mumbai police commissioner. Though the BJD won 12 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the loss in Bhubaneswar was blow for CM Naveen Patnaik, who saw it as a personal loss.
With Sarangi touring the constituency over the last five years through various campaigns, the BJP is confident of retaining the seat in the general elections this summer as well. “What is the point of leaving the most prestigious seat to BJD knowing well that we have upper hand there,” a senior BJP functionary in the state said, declining to be named.
Similarly, both the parties have locked their horns over Puri —the religious capital of Odisha and home to famous Jagannath temple. In 2019, BJP’s Sambit Patra lost to Pinaki Misra of the BJD by less than 12,000 votes. Despite the loss, Patra has been frequently visiting the constituency over the last five years.
For the BJD and specially Naveen Patnaik, Puri remains key to their larger plan and the state government recently executed the ₹943-crore Srimandir Parikrama Prakalpa, the beautification project of the perimeter of the iconic Jagannath temple with a myriad of facilities to make it a divine experience for the visiting devotees. As Lord Jagannath is the greatest identity of Odia community and the state’s history, culture, tradition and belief system are all centred around the deity, Patnaik has expended lot of his effort on the project to carry him through the election in a state steeped in religion.
A BJD functionary requesting anonymity, however, said the party may cede the Puri seat to the BJP it is unlikely to compromise on Bhubaneswar.
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