Congress may back an independent

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posted on 12 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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BHUBANESWAR: Even as speculations are rife over the third candidate of the BJD in the March 30 Rajya Sabha polls, the main Opposit..

BHUBANESWAR: Even as speculations are rife over the third candidate of the BJD in the March 30 Rajya Sabha polls, the main Opposition party Congress has decided not to field any candidate because of inadequate numbers. OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik told this paper that the party would not field a candidate, but will support one (Independent) if the situation develops in that direction. But for this, the Congress and other political parties should reach a consensus first, he said. The Congress does not want to encourage horse-trading by fielding a candidate without numbers like the BJD, he said. By deciding to field a third candidate, the BJD will resort to such practice for a win, Niranjan charged. In the BJP, the process of consultation is yet to start on the ensuing polls. The party will take a decision after the return of State president Jual Oram, who is out of state, party spokesman Ashok Sahu said. While the Congress has 27 MLAs in the Assembly, the BJP has six and the support of Independent Pratap Chandra Sarangi. The Congress claims support of three Independents. The BJD has a strength of 103 in the House and support of an Independent while its allies __ the NCP and the CPI __ have four MLAs and one respectively. Even if the allies and the Independent vote in favour of the BJD’s third candidate, the party will still be short of two votes for a win. A candidate will need 37 first preference votes for victory. The situation is quite similar to the 2010 elections in which the BJD had won all the three seats because of abstentions by two Congress MLAs and one BJP legislator. Police investigation into the alleged horse-trading is on after the alleged involvement of two ministers of state in bribing the Opposition MLAs came to the fore through an audio CD. While the BJP expelled Bhimsen Choudhury, who abstained, the Congress suspended Shivaji Majhi and Gregory Minz, who did not turn up to vote. These two are yet to attend any meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) from the day they abstained.