Naidu to calm BJP nerves in Orissa

The BJP is sending senior leader M. Venkaiah Naidu to Orissa on Thursday to quell what is being seen as brewing dissent over the party’s decision to abstain from supporting the BJD or the Congress-backed candidate in the Rajya Sabha poll there.

The BJP is sending senior leader M. Venkaiah Naidu to Orissa on Thursday to quell what is being seen as brewing dissent over the party’s decision to abstain from supporting the BJD or the Congress-backed candidate in the Rajya Sabha poll there.

HT Image

While the party had wanted to maintain equidistance from BJD candidate Baishnab Parida and Congress-supported Tara Patnaik, it might have to make its six MLAs fall in line or reconsider its position in view of some state leaders’ desire to support Patnaik.

“While the central leadership thought the Congress and BJP, being national rivals, could not come together in Orissa, the state unit feels it is important to stop the BJD, which ditched the BJP recently, from getting all three of its candidates through,” a senior central leader said.

On the party’s stand, the BJP’s state president Jual Oram was non-committal: “Tomorrow Naiduji is coming, only then will the final position become clear.”

An Orissa leader underlined the BJP’s fear: “As the party has just six MLAs, it can easily split even if four MLAs break the party whip.” The anti-defection law does not apply if two-thirds of a party’s MLAs cross over.

The BJP, already all but decimated in the state, can ill afford this.

The state has three vacancies in the coming Rajya Sabha polls. In the 147-member Orissa assembly, Naveen Patnaik’s BJD has 103 members, the Congress 27 and the BJP six. One independent is also with the BJP.

As 37 first-preference votes are enough for a candidate to get through, the BJD can make two of its candidates — Pyari Mohan Mahapatra and Sashi Bhushan Behera — sail through easily. It is the contest between Parida and Patnaik that has the BJP worried.