With Bishnu Charan Das of the BJD resigning from his Rajya Sabha membership, speculations are now rife as to who will replace him in the Parliament’s Upper House.
Political observers say BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik asked Bishnu Das to quit the RS seat with the intention of accommodating a particular person in his place. Many speculate that former Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik is in Naveen Patnaik’s view.
But a major section of the BJD is opposed to a retired bureaucrat, Bijay Patnaik, being favoured with such an important post since he, unlike Pyarimohan Mohapatra, lacks bare political acumen.
What these BJD leaders, including Bishnu Das, want is that someone with political experience or of socio-cultural and intellectual standing should be sent to the Rajya Sabha. They would greet Biju Patnaik’s writer-daughter Gita Mehta as the one, but she, as also her brother Naveen Patnaik, seems unwilling.
The party leaders would too welcome former Minister and BJD spokesperson Pratap Keshari Deb for the post. Besides, there are others in the race in the party as well as outside. One of the aspirants out of the party fold is Kishore Dwibedi, the New Delhi representative of premier Odia daily The Samaja. Dwibedi is not only a senior journalist but known as a leading Odia figure in the national capital involved in various socio-cultural activities among the community along with his eminent Odishi danseuse-wife Kabita Dwibedi.