After much deliberations, held across Bhubaneswar and Delhi, the BJD and BJP have decided not to form an alliance, with Odisha BJP president Manmohan Samal declaring Friday that the party would fight all the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies and 147 Assembly seats alone in the coming simultaneous polls. In his statement, Samal thanked the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD for its support to the BJP government at the Centre at key moments, but said the BJP did not agree with the BJD government on many issues pertaining to “the interests of Odia people”, like “Odia asmita (pride)”, and “Odia glory”. Though there was no official reaction from the BJD to Samal's statement till Friday evening, party leaders said it was ready to fight alone. A senior BJP leader familiar with the developments in Odisha said the final call had been taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the top leadership, “after assessing the ground realities”. “There is a wave in favour of Modi,” the leader said. He added that the push for an alliance came from the BJD side. “There is warmth and trust between the PM and Naveen babu (Naveen Patnaik), and (Patnaik's aide V K) Pandian wanted to build on it. The proposal and the talks happened because of that.” As the talks began recently, the central BJP was seen as not averse to an alliance with the BJD, even as the state unit resisted. The BJP has been growing in the state and is now the clear number two, with the Congress far behind. Odisha BJP leaders argued that there was no need for the party to enter an alliance and give up the Opposition space. Eventually the talks fell through on the contentious issue of sharing of Assembly seats. The BJD reportedly did not want to contest on anything less than 100 of the 147 Assembly seats, in the only state where it has a presence. But the BJP insisted on around 57 seats. Sources said the parties could not agree on a power-sharing formula post-elections either. The BJP’s plans to field certain rebel BJD leaders in the elections did not go down well with the BJD either. Samal was in Delhi till days ago, holding meetings with central leaders. Announcing that there would be no alliance via a post on X, he wrote that the BJP would fight under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi “to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of 4.5 crore people of the state”. Samal said that all the states with “double-engine governments” had seen a spurt in growth and welfare, but that in Odisha, “many welfare programmes of the Modi government could not reach the grassroots. Many people are deprived”. Some BJP leaders said there had been a change since Pandian took control of the state administration. A BJP leader claimed that while Patnaik remains popular, the rise of Pandian had dented this. “In order to protect and cement his position in the party, Pandian tried to forge an alliance with the BJP,” the BJP leader from the state said. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, seen as the BJP's most prominent Odisha face, reposted Samal’s statement. Soon after, a BJP leader in the state said: “It’s good that the air has been cleared. It will boost the morale of our workers.” While PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have ensured good relations with Patnaik, the talk that this might be taken one step further into a formal alliance had gained ground after the PM hailed the CM as “Lokpriya (people's leader)” when they shared the stage at an event in Odisha on March 5. The next day, the BJD appeared to confirm this with a cryptic statement saying “the party will do whatever it takes to make Odisha a developed state by 2036”. In the past fortnight, state BJP leaders made at least three rushed trips to Delhi to convince the central leadership that an alliance with the BJD would be “suicidal” for the party. A source said: “They argued that the BJP could emerge as the No. 1 political force in the state as Patnaik is ailing. Many BJD leaders too are keen to join the BJP.” But the central BJP saw the alliance as helpful towards achieving its goal of 400-plus seats for the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls, and towards increasing its tally in the Rajya Sabha. The BJD currently has nine MPs in the Upper House. On March 19, Pandian gave an indication that all was not going well in the talks when at an event of CNN-News18 he said that neither CM Patnaik nor PM Modi needed an alliance to “return to power”. Instead, the two great leaders wanted to come together “for a greater cause”, beyond politics, Pandian said, in his first public comments on the issue. Speaking at the same event a day later, Amit Shah said the national BJP president would take a call, while adding that the party was set to gain “massively” in Odisha, with or without an alliance, in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. A BJP source said that the failure to reach an alliance apart, there would not be any effect on ties with the BJD “as long as Naveen babu is there”. BJP sources claimed that Patnaik was also intrinsically averse to an alliance himself, to retain his position as a strong regional leader. BJP sources said discussions on all the seats had already been held with the central leadership, and candidates for two-third of them almost finalised. The list is expected to come out after the party's Central Election Committee meeting. Patnaik too has been carrying out a review of Lok Sabha seats, with BJD leaders assigned specific tasks for the elections. BJD sources said candidates would be announced after the CM has done a complete review of the seats. The Numbers In the 2019 elections, the BJP had replaced Congress as the principal Opposition party in the state, winning 23 Assembly seats as well as 8 Lok Sabha constituencies. While the party's vote share in the Lok Sabha polls showed a rise from 21.9% in 2014 to 38.9% in 2019, the BJD’s dipped only marginally, from 44.8% in 2014 to 43.3%. Hence, the BJP gained at the cost of the Congress, whose vote share fell from over 26% in 2014 to 14% in 2019. In the Assembly polls too, the BJP’s vote share saw a huge jump – from 18.2% in 2014 to 32.8% in 2019. But the BJD again held on, with a 45.2% vote share in the 2019 Assembly polls against 43.9% in 2014. The Congress saw its vote share decline from 26% to 16.3% in the period.
