Odisha: Congress’s unwavering persistence drives the India bloc to the verge

The INDIA alliance seems to have faltered in Odisha, as has been the pattern in a number of other states, including West Bengal and Punjab. As the CPM and CPI, respectively, wanted seats in the Lok Sabha for Bhubaneswar and Jagatsinghpur, the Congress has announced their candidates for both seats, putting the Odisha coalition in danger of disintegrating.

In addition, the party’s most recent list of 75 Assembly candidates, which it released on Sunday for the next election, does not include any seats reserved for the alliance partners. The grand old party’s unwillingness to give up has prevented the coalition negotiations between Congress and the Left parties in Odisha from progressing. The Congress and other stakeholders have had many rounds of negotiations, but they have not been able to come to an agreement.

In two stages for the next elections, the Congress has so far declared candidates for 124 Assembly seats and 17 Lok Sabha seats. The party left just two Assembly seats on the initial list, one for each of CPM and JMM. Additionally, the party has not yet announced a candidate for the seats in Aska and Mayurbhanj. Although the JMM has already declared its candidate for Mayurbhanj, reports have indicated that the CPI is also expected to put up candidates from Aska and Jagatsinghpur.

According to sources, state leaders of the Left parties are not pleased with the Congress’s decision to declare candidates on its own. Following a meeting of top leaders here on Monday, senior CPM leader Janardan Pati said the party would declare its candidate for the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat. The CPM is probably going to field Pati for the Lok Sabha seat in Bhubaneswar. He will compete against Manmath Routray of the BJD, Yasir Nawaz of the Congress, and Aparajita Sarangi, the current BJP MP.

Sarat Pattanayak, the head of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee, said that the party’s state chapters had no influence on seat sharing with INDIA. Only the expectations of other alliance partners for Lok Sabha and Assembly seats are communicated to the central party via OPCC. The central leadership makes all of the decisions. “Any conversations we had with the Left parties were passed along to the Center. The central party makes decisions after carefully weighing all options,” he said.