The victory of Congress candidate Ranjib Biswal for the uncertain fourth seat in the Rajya Sabha elections in the State on Friday against all odds has come as a morale booster for the beleaguered Opposition party ahead of the general elections.
For the first time in a long period of time, Biswal’s triumph was possible due to a remarkable unity in the Congress legislature Party (ClP) as all the 27 party MlAs voted in his favour. This was in contrast with the goof-up or deliberate act of seven ruling BJD MlAs who wasted their franchise by unnecessarily voting for the party’s three candidates beyond the support of 30 MlAs required for each of the three nominees for their win.
In the process, there were no adequate numbers of BJD MlAs to vote for sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra, who was declared none other than BJD chief Naveen Patnaik as the party-backed Independent candidate for the fourth seat.
The unity in the rank of the Congress MlAs was also striking in view of the BJD leaders’ open assertion that the Congress was so faction-ridden that many of its MlAs would vote for Mohapatra.
This claim by the BJD had given rise to speculations that the ruling party, as on such past occasions, would also resort to horse-trading taking advantage of the Congress disunity.
In fact, Naveen Patnaik had even “welcomed” in open arms at his residence two pro-Congress Independent MlAs Jitu Patnaik and Braja Kishore Pradhan to the BJD fold just a day before the Rajya Sabha polls. This was speculated in political circles as the beginning of wide-scale horse-trading by the ruling party especially to poach more MlAs, including those from the Congress, to vote for Raghunath Mohapatra.
On earlier occasions, Congress MlAs had defied the party whip and helped the BJD candidates win Rajya Sabha seats.