BHUBANESWAR: Aspirants of BJD ticket for Assembly seats are becoming restive with each passing day. With the party delaying its second list of candidates, the aspirants can be seen gathered at Naveen Niwas to lobby for tickets.
There is, however, complete silence on the part of party’s leadership on announcement of tickets. Some senior leaders who have already been announced as candidates for either Lok Sabha or Assembly seats maintained the party is not likely to make any move in this regard until the BJP announces its nominees for Assembly seats.
A leader maintained as there is more than half a dozen aspirants for each Assembly seat, announcing one of them as candidate will lead to further desertion from the party to BJP. This will benefit the saffron outfit which is also waiting for such development.
Several senior leaders of the party including six-time MP Bhatruhari Mahatab, Anubhav Mohanty and Arindam Roy have already left the party and joined BJP. Though the electoral outcome of such development will only be known on the day of counting of votes, it has already created a negative perception. The party cannot afford a large-scale desertion from its ranks once the Assembly candidates are announced as it will certainly lead to discontentment among a large number of aspirants.
Sources said this may be the reason behind BJD leaders launching a campaign against the BJP for not having candidates for all the 147 Assembly seats during the last three days. The campaign is meant to egg on BJP to release the first phase list for Assembly candidates. This may lead to a desertion of aspirants from BJP to BJD.
Assembly candidature apart, BJD has also held back announcement of nominees for six Lok Sabha seats including the key constituencies of Berhampur, Balasore, Balangir, Bhadrak, Bargarh and Keonjhar. Out of these seats, Berhampur will go to polls in the first phase on May 13.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik presided over a strategy session with leaders from Cuttack district for Lok Sabha seat.