The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had to contend with leaders quitting the party like its principal political opponent BJD, on Tuesday named the candidates for 21 more Assembly seats in Odisha after much winnability deliberation.
While the BJP has fielded its candidates on all the 21 parliamentary seats in the state, the BJD has so far released the names of 20 nominees for the Lok Sabha elections.
On the other hand, the BJP has already declared candidates for the all 21 LS seats while 112 nominees have been announced by the party for the 147 seats.
The assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the coastal state will be held simultaneously in four phases on May 13, 20, 25, and June 1.
Former Congress MLA K Suryo Rao quit the party to join the BJD on Saturday as former Biju Janata Dal MLA from Bhubaneswar (North) Priyadarshi Mishra resigned from the party to join the BJP.
Along with Mahtab, former BJD MP and artist Sidhant Mohapatra and Padma Shri awardee Dr Damyanti Beshra joined the BJP at the party’s headquarters here.
The BJD's strategy, as far as the assembly seats, is in sharp contrast to the selection of candidates for LS seats with a sizable chunk of old faces re-nominated to fight the polls. The state accounts for 147 seats in the assembly, with the party declaring nominees for 71 seats.
Mahatab, whose late father Harekrushna Mahatab, was State’s Chief Minister during early days of independence, is lauded across party lines for informative parliamentary debates.
The parties’ indecisiveness on candidate list has apparently given rise to a piquant scenario with pre-poll political activities virtually coming to a standstill.
It may be noted that Pandian, who is widely regarded as the centre of power in the government and the regional outfit party, had taken voluntary retirement from service last month when he was the Private Secretary to CM Naveen Patnaik.
