No Friendly Fight With BJD In Bijepur Bypoll: BJP

Bhubaneswar: With the Election Commission of India announcing October 21 as the date for the byelection to the Bijepur Assembly, the BJP on Sunday maintained that it will have no friendly fight with the ruling BJD.

“There is no question of a friendly fight with the BJD. After all, the BJP always fights for victory,” BJP state unit president Basanta Kumar Panda told the media here.

Asked about the selection of the candidate for the bypoll, he said the name of the three candidates will be sent to the Central Election Committee, which will finalise the name of one candidate.

On the other hand, the BJD is also going to announce its candidate in a couple of days.

As informed by the BJD leader Sanjay Das Burma, the steering committee of his party will have a meeting tomorrow in which the candidates willing to contest the bypoll will place their opinion while the party supremo will select the candidate.

Stating that the BJD has always given priority to all byelections held in the state, he said his party neither has an alliance with any party nor will it have a friendly fight with any party.

Notably, the BJD president Naveen Patnaik had formed a four-member coordination committee on September 18 having Niranjan Pujari, Susanta Singh, Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and Sanjay Das Burma as members to oversee the Bijepur bypoll.

Meanwhile, Congress has formed a committee under the chairmanship of Narasingha Mishra to select the candidate.

Talking to mediapersons on Sunday, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik said the party will finalise the name of its candidate on the basis of the report of the committee at a meeting on September 24.

He also claimed that the Congress will win the Bijepur seat this time.