The Congress, the main Opposition in Orissa, is yet undecided whether or not to field its candidate for the coming Rajya Sabha polls, even as three candidates of the ruling BJD filed their nomination papers on Friday.
The BJP, the second Opposition in the state, is also equally in a state of confusion. With only six members, the party is keeping a close watch on the political developments and sources in the party said it might back in the event an outstanding, non-Congress personality contests elections.
State Congress president K.P. Singhdeo and Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh are waiting for party high command Sonia Gandhi to open her mind if she would nominate a candidate or extend support to an Independent candidate.
The three BJD candidates who filed their nominations on Friday are Pyarimohan Mohapatra, Sashi Bhusban Behera and Baishnab Parida.
Each candidate needs at least 37 first preference votes to win the polls. Since the BJD has 103 members in the 147-seat state Assembly, it can easily get the first two candidates — Mr Mohapatra and Mr Behera — elected.
For the third candidate, Mr Baishnab Parida, the BJD needs support of at least eight more votes.
Four NCP legislators have pledged to vote for Mr Parida.
Two Independent legislators and one CPI MLA are likely to vote in favour of the BJD’s third candidate.
The BJD hopes to get the one more required vote from among the six Independent legislators.
However, a section of the BJD leaders apprehend that all calculation may go wrong if the Congress and BJP join hands and put up a united candidate.
Though the Congress and BJP have ideological differences, there are several instances the parties jointly fighting inside the state Assembly against the ruling party on many issues like mining scam, police atrocities on tribals, farmer suicide cases and irregularities in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
A BJP source said the party would not support any Congress or Congress-backed candidate.