BJD to open its cards after poll results

The ruling Biju Janata Dal(BJD) in Odisha has adopted a wait and watch policy and indicted that it would open its cards only after the general elections results are out on Thursday.

The Naveen Patnaik led regional outfit is not a constituent of either the NDA or the UPA. It had been maintaining an equidistant from the two formations though at times it's has thrown its lot behind the Modi led NDA government on various issues during the last five years.

“We are not going to form the government at the Centre. We are neither with the NDA nor with the UPA. If anybody will need our support or assistance, they will come to us. There is no need for us to go to them. The party will take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time if somebody will seek our support”, senior party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Pratap Dev said.

However, party insiders said the regional outfit will not side with any formation that will be led by the Congress. “Our party was born on an anti-Congress platform. How can we have any truck with the Congress. If we will do so it will hit our core vote bank hard. However, the party president will take a final call on the issue”, said a senior BJD leader.

Meanwhile, in an interesting development the state unit of the Congress has already accepted defeat in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the state which were held in four phases last month even before the results are out.

“We will not be in a position to form the government in the state. But we will be giving a better performance than 2014”, the Pradesh Congress Committee(PCC) president Niranjan Patnaik told reporters here. The party which had ruled the state for several years in the past had reduced to a group of only 16 MLAs in 2014. It had failed to win even a single Lok Sabha seat.