BHUBANESWAR: Following Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s assertion that he will work towards getting every vote from Odisha for NDA presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the BJD has decided to approach the nine Congress MLAs and the lone CPM member of the Odisha Assembly to support her.
The modalities of how to go about this is yet to be decided, though it is clear that any move in this regard will be started only after the return of the Chief Minister from his foreign tour on June 30.
Murmu is likely to visit Odisha for her campaign during the first week of July in the midst of the budget session of the Assembly. She is likely to meet all the MLAs across party lines and seek their support.
Sources said that BJD will do the groundwork before the campaign of the presidential candidate so that the process is completed smoothly. They said, the ruling party is already on the job to exploit the fissures in the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) for the presidential polls and the task has been assigned to some leaders. However, BJD leaders declined to comment anything on the election as the Chief Minister is handling it directly.
Meanwhile, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Sarat Pattanayak told this paper that the issue will be discussed in the CLP before the budget session starting from July 2. The party will discuss strategy to keep all the nine votes of the Congress MLAs in favour of the united Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha, who filed his nomination papers on Monday.
Referring to the statement of Chief Minister that the BJD party will try to get all votes from Odisha for Murmu, Pattanayak said BJD will do its work. The Congress MLAs, however, will follow the party stand and there is no threat either from the BJD or BJP. Asked about the statement of senior MLA Suresh Kumar Routray supporting the candidature of Murmu, Pattanayak said that the issue is already sorted out and a strong message has been given to the MLAs in this regard.