BHUBANESWAR: Even as the fate of BJP’s alliance with the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) hangs in balance, the party’s state president Manmohan Samal left for New Delhi on Monday to finalise candidates for upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to be held simultaneously in Odisha.
Samal is stated to have carried with him a list of candidates whose names were shortlisted in the meeting of party’s state election committee held here on Saturday. While he was accompanied by party’s state general secretary (organisation) Manas Mohanty, election co-in-charges for Odisha Vijay Pal Singh Tomar and Lata Usendi had departed for the national capital a day earlier.
Confirming that the party has already forwarded the list of shortlisted candidates to the central leadership for approval, senior BJP leaders and Sundargarh MP Jual Oram told reporters here there is no confusion among party workers over any alliance. “We have sent a list to the central leadership and everything will be done as per their decision,” Oram said, adding the final selection of candidates will be done by the BJP parliamentary board.
President of state BJP Mahila Morcha and ex-officio member of party’s state election committee Aishwarya Biswal said the meeting had threadbare discussion on each Assembly and Lok Sabha constituency and winnability was the criteria for selection of candidates.
Samal attended the central core committee meeting of the BJP along with organising secretary Manas Mohanty, national spokespersons Sambit Patra, Tomar and Usendi.
“We are not sure what will be discussed at the core committee meeting since there was no clarity yet on the alliance with BJD. For that matter, Samal will have to wait till Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches Delhi after completing his tour of south India,” said sources in the party.
In case there is an alliance with BJD, the candidates’ list prepared by the state SEC will have to be worked out afresh, sources added. The state leadership is expecting the names of candidates for Odisha to be announced by the party’s central election committee in the third phase.
This is the third visit of Samal to Delhi in less than two weeks amid speculations that the BJP and BJD are interested to sew up a pre-poll alliance in the state just after the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the state on March 5.
