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Dilip Ray lobbies for Orissa CM post

M I Khan in Bhubaneswar

The Biju Janata Dal has officially decided to project its president and Union Minister for Mines and Minerals Naveen Patnaik as the chief ministerial candidate for the ensuing assembly elections in Orissa.

However, another senior BJD leader and Union Minister of State for Steel Dilip Ray has started lobbying for the top post as a compromise candidate in view of BJD alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party's reservations about Patnaik's candidature.

Reliable sources in the BJD confirmed this today. Sources said Ray has started meeting BJD and BJP members of legislator seeking their support for his candidature.

Sources told rediff.com that two days ago, 16 out of 37 BJD MLAs and all the 10 BJP MLAs along with senior state BJP leaders met Ray in Bhubaneswar and assured him of their support in case he plunges into the race for the top post.

"In this secret meeting, both the BJD and BJP MLAs as well as several senior leaders indicated their support to Ray," sources said.

However, senior BJD and BJP leaders are tight-lipped on the issue.

Despite repeated attempts by rediff.com, Ray was not available for his comment on the issue. But a confident and senior BJD leader said that Ray has held discussions with some of the BJD and BJP MLAs recently. He, however, refused to give details.

Ray is considered closer to the central and state BJP leaders than Naveen Patnaik as he had openly sought an alliance with the BJP before the vertical split in the Janata Dal in Orissa in 1997.

Besides, it was Ray who had worked behind the scenes to ensure the JD split.

Keeping these facts in view, he is more acceptable to several BJP leaders who have been openly protesting against the projection of Naveen Patnaik as the chief ministerial candidate.

"Nothing can be ruled out at this juncture,'' said state observers. ''Ray's shrewdness can be gauged from the fact he was a Union minister in both the United Front and BJP governments at the Centre."

Sources said he has good relations with senior BJP leaders. This was evident last year when he was sent by the BJP to win over All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham leader J Jayalalitha and Telugu Desam Party chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu.

Despite his ambition, Ray himself had proposed Patnaik's name for the top state job at a recent BJD meeting.

However, state BJP vice-president Prasant Nanda has said his party would not project any one as the chief ministerial candidate as the issue would be decided after the polls by the newly elected MLAs. Even state BJP president Manmohan Samal has reportedly confirmed this.

Further clues to the BJP stand on the issue could be culled from a senior party leader's statement against Naveen Patnaik. Without naming the BJD leader, the BJP leader said a few months ago that anybody who was not aware of Oriya culture and who did not know Oriya should not become the chief minister. As Naveen Patnaik is yet to speak Oriya fluently, it is said the BJP leader's salvo was against Patnaik.

The BJP has been demanding at least 50 per cent of the total 147 assembly seats in the state. But the BJD is firm on not giving more than 40 assembly seats to the BJP.

The BJD steering committee has already recommended to the party president that the party should contest 122 seats in the assembly polls leaving only 25 seats for the BJP.

Sources said the alliance partners have been demanding more seats to increase their bargaining power in the final talks over the issue. Both the parties know very well that their alliance is a political compulsion to defeat the ruling Congress in the state.

The Congress has decided not to project any leader as its chief ministerial candidate. This has been confirmed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi during her recent two-day visit to the state.

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