Pleas In HC Challenging Election Of 9 MLAs & 1 MP In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: On Thursday, petitions contesting the election of seven MLAs, including Jajpur Lok Sabha MP Rabi Narayan Behera and deputy chief minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo, were submitted to the Orissa High Court.

On June 4, the results of the Odisha general elections of 2024 were announced. Nine of these pleas have been submitted at the high court overall, since two election petitions were filed earlier. Saroj Kumar Meher, a BJD candidate, filed a petition on Thursday contesting the election of Deputy CM KV Singh Deo, a BJP MLA.

Meher who lost by a margin of 1,357 votes has questioned the entire counting process and sought declaration of election of Singh Deo as void.

Election petitions must be filed within 45 days of a candidate’s election date, according to the Representation of Peoples’ Act, 1951.

On a similar note, Jagannath Pradhan of the BJP has challenged the election of BJD MLA Ananta Narayan Jena from Bhubaneswar-Central, alleging concerns about the ballot counting procedure, with regard to postal ballots—and is calling for new elections. Jena defeated Pradhan by a slim margin of just 37 votes.

Former Bargarh MLA Debesh Acharya also moved the High Court against election of BJP MLA Ashwini Sarangi. He alleged that Sarangi provided false information on his criminal cases and assets in the affidavit submitted with his nomination for the Assembly polls.

Former BJD minister Ashok Chandra Panda contested the election of BJP MLA Babu Singh from the Bhubaneswar-Ekmara constituency in a different petition. Bishnubrata Routray of the BJD also submitted a petition contesting Ashok Kumar Das’ election as Congress MLA for the Basudevpur constituency.

Two petitions were filed by Giriraj Singh Majhi and Manoj Kumar Panda claiming to be voters of Kantabanji and Berhampur Assembly constituencies respectively.

While Majhi challenged the election of BJP’s Laxman Bag from Kantabanji, Panda challenged the election of BJP MLA Anil Kumar Panda from Berhampur. Former CM and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik and former MLA Ramesh Chandra Chau Pattanayak lost to Bag and Panda from Kantabanji and Berhampur respectively.

Former MP Sarmistha Sethi of BJD has also filed a petition challenging the election of BJP’s Rabi Narayan Behera from Jajpur parliamentary constituency. Sethi lost to Behera by a margin of 1,587 votes.

Earlier, two petitions were filed by former minister Dilip Ray of BJP and BJD’s former MLA Dipali Das who had lost from the Rourkela and Jharsuguda constituencies respectively.