Overview
- Congress leaders said 8–9 of the party’s 14 Odisha MLAs were moved to a resort near Bengaluru to guard against poaching attempts, with Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar arranging their stay and saying he did not bring them.
- BJD convened mandatory evening “priority” sessions at Naveen Niwas through the weekend to brief MLAs on the preferential ballot and stress party-line voting.
- Both BJD and Congress issued three-line whips directing legislators to remain in Bhubaneswar and be present for voting on March 16 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Odisha Assembly.
- The field features five contenders for four seats: BJP’s Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar and BJP-backed Independent Dilip Ray, versus BJD’s Santrupt Misra and Dr. Datteswar Hota, the latter backed by Congress and the CPI(M).
- Tight arithmetic leaves the fourth seat undecided, with roughly 30 first-preference votes needed per winner; BJD and Congress accuse the BJP of horse-trading, which BJP spokespeople deny.