Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Mohan Majhi on Monday called a meeting of BJP MLAs at his official residence in Bhubaneswar with political manoeuvring intensifying in Odisha amid uncertainty over potential contest for the fourth seat in the Rajya Sabha biennial elections.
Sources said that BJP is expected to collect nine sets of nomination forms and announce names of three candidates in the evening. The last date for filing nominations for Rajya Sabha polls, scheduled to be held on March 16, is March 5.
It has come amid probable meeting of BJP parliamentary board later in the day to finalise candidates for 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states, including four from Odisha.
While the Saffron party is yet to announced its candidates for the four seats from Odisha, the BJD has already named former corporate businessman Santrupt Mishra for the seat which it can easily win and urologist Datteswar Hota as the “common candidate” with Congress support to prevent the possibility of the BJP from winning a third seat from the state.
The BJD had collected six nomination forms from the state Assembly Secretariat for the biennial poll, hours after Election Commission of India (ECI) issued a notification for election to four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha on February 26.
The Number Game
In the 147-member Odisha Legislative Assembly, the BJP has 79 MLAs and the support of three Independents, giving it an effective strength of 82 votes. The BJD’s tally stands at 48 following the suspension of two of its legislators last month. The Congress has 14 MLAs, and the CPI(M) has one.
The BJP is comfortably positioned to win two seats. After securing those, it would have about 22 surplus votes, eight short of the threshold needed for a third seat on its own. The BJD, after electing one member, would be left with 19 surplus votes and the Opposition expects that with the support of Congress and CPI(M), Hota can survive the electoral battle in case of a contest.
Likely BJP Nominees
The BJP’s core committee, which met on February 22, has forwarded a list of probable nominees to the party’s Parliamentary Board for its final stamp. State unit president Manmohan Samal and former state president Samir Mohanty are said to be the front-runners, with incumbent MPs Sujit Kumar and Mamata Mahanta also in the mix. Dilip Ray, a former Union minister, is also in contention, while veteran leader Golak Mohapatra and ex-state treasurer Sudarshan Goel have garnered considerable backing among core committee members, according to party sources.
Majhi meeting with Nitin Nabin in New Delhi last week also sparked discussions about the BJP national president’s possible candidacy from Odisha.
