Four days after the Election Commission announced simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha and Assembly, the political activities and customary polls-related excitement is conspicuously absent in Odisha with none of the leading parties- BJD, BJP and Congress coming out with their list of candidates.

The parties’ indecisiveness on candidate list has apparently given rise to a piquant scenario with pre-poll political activities virtually coming to a standstill.

The grass root cadres of the major parties — mostly the BJD and the BJP — are quite confused on embarking on door to door canvassing at the ground level.

“Possibility of a pre-poll alliance is still intact. That’s why; candidate selection process has been delayed. We are in a catch-22 situation. We do not know what to do? Since the 2019 polls, we have opposed each other tooth and nail. If the alliance is forged, we have to keep the past animosity in the backburner to come to a friendly terms. That’s not an easy task at the village and booth level given the fact that social bonding had become a casualty due to political differences”, remarked a cross-section cadres of BJP and BJD.

For the Congress workers however, things are on a different track. The party workers of the grand old party exude optimism of a better performance in the polls as the BJD-BJP stitched a pre-poll tie-up.

“We have always been sending the message loud and clear that BJD is in partnership with BJP. The alliance formation will add ammunition to our campaign. We will be able to garner the support of people who are heavily let down by the BJD-led government in the State and Modi government at the Centre”, remarked a Congress worker from Jagatsinghpur, Ramakant Mohanty.

Though the possibility of BJD-BJP stitching up a pre-poll alliance has dipped considerably, the Congress is trekking on ‘wait and watch track’, delaying the list, analysts believe.

Meanwhile the ruling Biju Janata Dal has initiated the process of selecting candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections here on Monday after a prolonged spell of wait which lent credence to speculations over a possible alliance with the BJP.

BJP Odisha unit president Manmohan Samal and a few other leaders are currently in Delhi with a list of candidates for the 147 assembly and 21 LS seats. A consultative committee of the BJP met yesterday at Delhi to discuss the list of candidates. It will be placed before the election committee on Tuesday, party sources confided.

The latest developments come after several rounds of negotiations between the BJD and the central leadership of the BJP for a pre-poll alliance. Skeptics here continue to speculate that BJD’s exercise may well be aimed at sending a strong message to the central BJP leadership on its preparedness. Though the chances of an alliance have dimmed, one cannot rule it out as yet, observed political analysts here.

Odisha will vote in the Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls, which are being held simultaneously, in four phases. The coastal State has 21 Lok Sabha seats and a 147-member assembly.

On May 13, polling will be held for the Nabarangpur, Koraput, Berhampur and Kalahandi Lok Sabha seats. In the next phase on May 20, voting will be held for the Aska, Kandhamal, Bolangir, Bargarh and Sundargarh Lok Sabha seats.

On May 25, voting for the Sambalpur, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack seats will be held. Polling for the Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur and Jajpur seats will be held on June 1.

In the 2019 LS elections, BJD won 12 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats, while the BJP secured eight and Congress managed one seat. In the assembly, the BJD bagged 113 seats, the BJP won 23, the Congress secured nine, the CPI (M) won one, and also an Independent candidate won.