Bhubaneswar, March 16 -- The Odisha Congress accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of engaging in "political engineering" and attempting horse-trading to support Independent candidate Dilip Ray in the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled to be held on Monday.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Odisha Congress president Bhakta Charan Das and Odisha Congress in-charge Ajay Kumar Lallu alleged that the BJP was backing an Independent candidate despite lacking the required numbers, which they claimed was a strategy to influence votes through money power.

Lallu alleged that Dilip Ray, during his tenure as Coal Minister, was involved in a corruption case and was later convicted for three years. Questioning the BJP's support for such a...