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The seat-sharing talks between the BJD and BJP continue to hang, with sources talking of hard bargaining on both sides, especially over Assembly seats, with the state seeing simultaneous elections along with the Lok Sabha.
The Naveen Patnaik-led BJD reportedly does not want anything less than 100 of the total 147 Assembly seats. For the Lok Sabha, there is an overall agreement that the BJP will contest as much as two-third of the seats.
Senior BJD leaders V K Pandian and Pranab Prakash Das, who had flown to Delhi earlier this week for the seat-sharing talks, returned to Bhubaneswar Friday. BJP Odisha leaders, including state unit president Manmohan Samal, who were earlier asked not to leave Delhi by the party, also landed in the state in the evening.
Sources said that Odisha BJP leaders are not agreeable to the BJD claiming the lion’s share of the Assembly seats, and instead want the same arrangement as existed between the two parties in 2000-09, when the BJD-BJP share was 84-63, respectively.
State BJP leaders, who have been taking on the BJD as the main opposition in Odisha, are trying to persuade the central leaders that there is strong anti-incumbency against the ruling state party on the ground, and that the BJP would do well even on its own. Hence, they argue, first contesting in an alliance and then agreeing to less than 50 Assembly seats would not fare well for the party.
Speaking to reporters after landing in Bhubaneswar, Samal claimed there had been no discussion on an alliance at all, and that the BJP
“would fight on its own”. “We had gone to Delhi to discuss our election strategy with the top leadership. The meeting was to discuss preparations for forming a government at the Centre as well as in Odisha,” the state BJP chief said.
BJP Odisha unit vice-president Prithviraj Harichandan said the state leaders believed the party would fare better if it fought alone, but they would accept whatever the central leadership decides.
BJD sources, however, spoke of multiple rounds of discussions with central BJP leaders, and said talks over an alliance and seat-sharing would continue.
“When it comes to the Lok Sabha, the two parties have more or less agreed to the BJP fighting 14 of the 21 seats, leaving 7 for the BJD. There may be some issues, such as the BJD looking to contest the Bhubaneswar and Puri Lok Sabha seats, but these can be sorted out. However, there will be no compromise over the Assembly polls,” a BJD source said.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJD had won 12 of the 21 seats, the BJP 8 and Congress 1. In the Rajya Sabha, the BJD has 9 MPs, and helped the BJP’s Ashwini Vaishnaw get re-elected recently.
But in the Assembly polls, the BJD dominance has been total, with the party giving specific examples of constituencies and of Naveen Patnaik’s continuing popularity, to explain its push for not less than 100 seats. In 2019, the party had won 112 of the 146 seats.
“It would be difficult for the party to manage if it contests less than 100 seats. There will be rebel candidates, and it will cost the party,” a BJD leader said.
