BJD to support BJP candidate in RS bypoll

The ruling BJD on Friday announced Amar Patnaik and Sasmit Patra as its candidates for the Rajya Sabha bypolls in Odisha and said it will support BJP nominee Ashiwini Vaishnab for the third seat.

Vaishnab was a private secretary to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah had spoken to him regarding BJD's support to Vaishnab.

Vaishnab, a former Odisha cadre IAS officer, had quit government service and moved to the Prime Minister's Office when Vajpayee was at the helm.

The Odisha chief minister committed a faux pas when he named Vaishnab as a BJD candidate but subsequently clarified that the ex-bureaucrat is a BJP nominee to be backed by his party.

The BJD's support to the BJP nominee in the July 5 Rajya Sabha bypoll followed its backing of the saffron party candidate in the election for the Lok Sabha Speaker's post recently.

Of the BJD nominees for the Rajya Sabha, Patnaik is the IT cell chief of the ruling party. A former Accountant General of Odisha, Patnaik had resigned from IAAS last year and joined the BJD.

Patra, an academician, had joined the BJD a few years ago and at present he is a spokesperson of the party.

The three Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant after four MPs resigned from the Upper House after they were elected to the Lok Sabha or the state assembly in the recently concluded elections.

Though four seats fell vacant, the EC issued notification for three seats as there is almost a year left for the tenure of the fourth seat to end, sources said.

The bypolls are being held in the seats vacated by Achyuta Samant, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and P K Deb. There will be no election for the seat vacated by Anubhav Mohanty.

While Samanta and Patnaik's tenure as Rajya Sabha member was till April 2024, Deb would have to to retire in July, 2022. However, Mohanty was supposed to end his Rajya Sabha membership in April 2020.

The BJD has 111 MLAs in the 147-member Odisha Assembly while 23 MLAs belong to the BJP and nine to the Congress. The CPI(M) and Independent won one seat each. Two seats (Patkura and Bijepur) are vacant where polling will be held later.