BJD starts selection process for polls

Bhubaneswar : The ruling Biju Janata Dal has started the process of selecting candidates for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, as the process for a pre-poll alliance with the BJP is in limbo.

Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik also asked his party leaders to pay all attention to their constituencies instead of staying put in the State capital and lobbying for tickets, a party insider said. “We will start selecting our candidates without waiting for the BJP’s decision (on alliance). We will see what will happen later,” a senior BJD leader said.

Senior BJD leaders congregated at Naveen Niwas, the residence of Naveen Patnaik. on Wednesday, and discussed the party’s preparations for the polls as well as the likely candidates for Koraput parliamentary constituency and its seven Assembly segments. While the tribal-dominated Koraput Lok Sabha seat is being represented by Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, BJD has MLAs in four of the seven Assembly seats – Gunupur (ST), Bissam Cuttack (ST), Lakshmipur (ST) and Koraput (SC) – under this Parliamentary constituency. Jeypore and Pottangi (ST) Assembly seats is with Congress and Rayagada (ST) with an Independent.

The BJD has directed the leaders to inform the party authorities of their day-to-day activities in constituencies. For this purpose, Naveen has opened two monitoring cells, one at ‘Naveen Niwas’ and another at ‘Sankha Bhawan’, the State party headquarters, to keep a tab on the activities of the leaders in their constituencies.

The leaders were told to send photographs of their activities in constituencies. Naveen on Monday held a meeting with party leaders from Puri and Kendrapara Lok Sabha constituencies.

Meanwhile, a BJP team from Odisha has been camping at the national capital holding meetings with central leaders over seat sharing with BJD for the past two days.

Elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly in the State will be held in four phases on May 13, 20, 25 and June 1.

On Monday, the BJP Odisha unit president went to Delhi with shortlisted names of candidates for all the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 Assembly segments, party sources said. The BJD and the BJP were in alliance for 11 years between 1998 and 2009 and fought three Lok Sabha and two Assembly elections together.