Bhubaneswar: A day after his suspension from BJD, Baliguda MLA Chakramani Kanhar on Sunday asserted that he voted to uphold the legacy of Biju Patnaik in the recently-concluded Rajya Sabha election.
“I cast my first vote as per the party’s directives (to Santrupt Misra ) and gave my second vote to the Independent candidate (Dilip Ray). I have never betrayed the party and worked in accordance with its ideology and principles. I will continue to serve the people of the state,” he told reporters.
The suspension order, issued following show-cause notices on March 17 and unsatisfactory replies from the MLAs, cited a violation of the BJD Constitution’s emphasis on “absolute loyalty to the party’s collective decisions.” Alongside Kanhar, the other suspended legislators include Naba Kishore Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol), and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki). The BJD has indicated plans to pursue disqualification of these MLAs from the Odisha Assembly.
Earlier, the Banki MLA had openly declared his vote for Ray, while asserting that the latter represented the true ideals of Biju Patnaik and the need for BJD to move back towards its founding ideology.
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The former Union Minister won as an Independent in the March 16 Rajya Sabha election courtesy cross-voting by BJD and Congress MLAs. He had sought votes by invoking the legacy of former Odisha Chief Minister. He referred to him as his “mentor” and appealed to Biju loyalists across all parties to support him.
His victory delivered a major blow to BJD president Naveen Patnaik, who had expelled Ray from the party in 2002 after he decided to contest as an independent candidate after being denied ticket to contest the Rajya Sabha polls then. This was the third setback for Naveen after the debacle in 2024 elections, which ended his 24-year consecutive rule in Odisha, followed by the BJD’s humiliating defeat in the Nuapada Assembly by-election in November last year as the party failed to retain the seat.
Meanwhile, Cuttack Mayor Subhash Singh accused three MLAs – Souvic Biswal, Devi Ranjan Tripathy, and Sofia Firdous – of betraying public trust and bringing disrepute to the city. “They have been part of a conspiracy to weaken the BJD for past two years which now stands exposed,” he alleged, while challenging them to resign and seek a fresh mandate from the people.
