Today in Politics: Is breakthrough imminent in BJP-BJD seat-sharing talks?

“Naveen Patnaik is undoubtedly going to be CM of the state and Narendra Modi is going to be the PM of the country. But there is something which is beyond politics. It is a mark of great statesmanship. That is how I put it,” Pandian said on Tuesday at the Rising Bharat Summit organised in New Delhi by CNN News-18 in partnership with The Hindustan Times.

BJP insiders said senior leaders such as Odisha BJP in-charge Sunil Bansal, state unit president Manmohan Samal, and leaders from the state such as Baijayant Panda and Dharmendra Pradhan held at least a four-long meeting at the party office about the alliance.

In context: Rumours about the BJP returning to the NDA fold gathered pace after the ruling party supported Ashwini Vaishnaw’s Rajya Sabha candidature. However, they reached a stalemate after sources confirmed hard bargaining on both sides, especially over Assembly seats, with the state seeing simultaneous elections along with the Lok Sabha.

The BJD reportedly wants to contest more 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-thirds of the seats.

Recommended readings: BJD-BJP talks hit Assembly polls stalemate, BJD wants lion’s share

Congress Lok Sabha list likely

The Congress is likely to release its third list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls on Wednesday.

The party’s Central Election Commission (CEC) held a meeting on Tuesday during which candidates for 12 seats in West Bengal and a few names in Karnataka were finalised.

Karnataka Deputy CM D K Shivakumar on Sunday said the names for the Lok Sabha seats in the state had been finalised and the list would be released on March 20. The Congress has so far released two lists of 39 and 43 candidates respectively.

EC to issue notification for phase 1 of LS polls

The Election Commission (EC) will issue the notification for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, under which 102 constituencies will go to polls on April 19.

The last date for filing nominations is March 27. Of the constituencies going to polls in the first phase are all 39 in Tamil Nadu, 12 in Rajasthan, eight in Uttar Pradesh, six in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Uttarakhand, Assam and Maharashtra, four in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two each in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, and one each in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.

– With PTI inputs