The declaration of candidates for the 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats by the three main parties — BJD, BJP and Congress — seems to be getting delayed with continuing suspense over a possible alliance between the BJP and the BJD.

Election in Odisha will be held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. While the ruling BJD and the BJP, the main Opposition, are waiting for a final word on the alliance to declare their candidates, the Congress is playing a wait-and-watch game.

The delay in the declaration of candidates has strengthened the suspicion that the BJD-BJP alliance talks are still on. “If one analyses what happened in the last general election it is easy to conclude that the declaration of the candidates has been delayed this time. The BJP has declared the list of candidates for many other states but not for Odisha. It shows something is cooking,” said political analyst Ashutosh Mishra.

What’s more interesting is that though the state BJP has already sent its list of probable candidates to the central leadership, a decision over it is pending at the parliamentary board level. The BJP state unit president Manmohan Samal has said that central leadership would take the final call on the issue.

On the other hand, the BJD which has received applications from 10,000 aspirants for contesting the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, has already met its observers and chalked out the plan for the ensuing election.

The BJD leaders on Monday met at Naveen Nivas to discuss the issue of candidates under the Puri Lok Sabha constituency. “We discussed the Puri Lok Sabha seat and all the Assembly constituencies under the Puri Lok Sabha. Discussion is on to strengthen the organisation,” said former minister and BJD MLA Arun Sahoo.

Sources said the party is preparing two lists. “If there is an alliance, the list of candidates would be different and if there is no alliance, another list of candidates would be published,” sources said.

“Once the haze is cleared on the issue of alliance, the BJD would come out with the list of probable candidates,” said the source. In its list, the BJD would try to give a ticket to only one member of a family even though there are a number of aspirants from a single family this time.

The Congress, which hopes to do good this time, is waiting for the announcement of the candidates by the BJP and BJD. Congress senior MLA Suresch Routray said, “We have already finalised our candidates, We are waiting for the announcement by the BJP and BJD. Once it’s done, our list will be published. The BJP-BJD alliance will help us.”

On the other hand, the delay in the announcement of the candidate list has led to a rise in frustration among the candidates.