BHUBANESWAR: The top leaders of the BJD, 5T chairman VK Pandian and party general secretary (organisation) Pranab Prakash Das, who had rushed to New Delhi for seat sharing talks with the national leadership of BJP returned to Bhubaneswar on Friday.
They reportedly had several rounds of discussions with the central leaders of BJP but talks seem to have stuck on some key Lok Sabha seats and Assembly constituencies from where both the parties want to contest. Both, however, remained tight-lipped on the issue.
“The alliance is decided. However, the issues to be thrashed out are the numbers and places. The negotiations might drag a little longer,” said informed sources.
Sources in the BJD pointed out that the party wants a major share of the Assembly seats. It is important for the BJD to maintain its strong footing in Assembly given its current numbers.
A senior leader told this paper that the BJD will not agree to less than 100 Assembly seats and leave the rest to the BJP. “The seat share ratio of 4:3 between the BJD and BJP in 2000 and 2004 elections will not be workable in this election as the ruling party currently is in a much stronger position than those years,” said a regional party leader.
Sources said negotiations over the prestigious Bhubaneswar and Puri Lok Sabha constituencies too have emerged a sticking point as BJD wants both the seats. Besides, though the ratio of LS seats ranging from 14-12 seats to the BJP and 7-9 seats to the BJD are doing the rounds, state leaders of both the parties do not seem to be on the same page.
The Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat was with the BJD for five consecutive times since 1998 until it was wrested by the BJP in 2019. The BJD had made Bhubaneswar a priority constituency since the last six months and does not want to leave the seat to BJP.
The Puri Lok Sabha seat is also a prestige issue for the ruling BJD. The party had represented the seat six times in a row since 1998. Puri has been the focus of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik since the last several years.
The government has implemented the high profile `900 crore Srimandir Parikrama project which the chief minister had dedicated to the nation on January 17 this year.
However, the BJP has made deep inroads in the seat since 2014 and was very close to winning the seat in 2019. In fact, BJD MP Pinaki Misra was just about to scrape through, defeating BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra by a narrow margin of 11,500 votes. Patra has since made the constituency his karma bhoomi and nurtured it for the last five years. He is being projected as BJP candidate this time also.