Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has written to Odisha Assembly Speaker to disqualify eight MLAs on grounds of anti-party activities and violation of the party whip during the recent Rajya Sabha elections, Opposition whip Pramila Mallik informed on Monday.
Speaking to the reporters, the senior BJD leader asserted that the legislators should either resign from their Assembly seats or face removal. “If they truly believe they enjoy public support, they should contest resign and the by-elections,” she added.
Echoing the same, BJD MLA Arun Sahoo said party legislators met the Speaker and submitted a formal request for disqualification. He alleged that the eight MLAs not only ignored the party whip but have also distanced themselves from the party.
The controversy stems from the Rajya Sabha biennial elections held in March 2026. The BJD, in alliance with Congress and Left parties, had backed independent candidate Datteswar Hota. However, eight BJD MLAs reportedly cross-voted in favour of BJP-backed independent candidate Dilip Ray, who ultimately won the seat. Two days prior to the polling, the BJD had issued a clear whip directing its MLAs to remain at the party headquarters and attend an official meeting, directions some of the accused legislators allegedly ignored.
The party first issued show-cause notices and later suspended six of the MLAs – Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Naba Kishore Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol), and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki) – for anti-party activities, including cross-voting that violated the BJD constitution’s emphasis on absolute loyalty to collective decisions. The suspensions, approved by the Political Affairs Committee chaired by party president Naveen Patnaik, reduced the BJD’s strength in the 147-member Odisha Assembly to 42 (from 51 seats won in the 2024 elections). The other two – Aravind Mohapatra (Patkura), Sanatan Mahakud (Champua) – were already under suspension.
Sahoo cited precedents such as the 2017 disqualification of JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav from the Rajya Sabha, where public opposition to party leadership and alignment with rivals was deemed as voluntarily giving up membership. Similar actions against MLAs in Himachal Pradesh were also referenced. He argued that openly defying the party whip and leadership amounts to defection under the anti-defection law.
The BJD is invoking Article 191(2) of the Constitution read with the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection provisions), which disqualifies a member for voluntarily giving up party membership or voting/abstaining contrary to a party direction (whip) without prior permission, if not condoned within 15 days.
This came a day after former Bhadrak MP Manjulata Mandal, her husband and former Dhamnagar MLA Muktikanta Mandal, whom BJD president Naveen Patnaik suspended on April 6 for alleged anti-party activities, along with several senior leaders and more than 500 workers from Bhadrak district, resigned from the party. Prominent among those who quit include former district president Jagannath Swain, BJD leader Shashi Sahu, and former Simulia MLA candidate Subasini Sahoo.
