After a decade-long victory in successive Rajya Sabha polls, Chief Minister and ruling BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik for the first time on Friday suffered a setback with the party-sponsored Independent candidate sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra having lost to Congress nominee Ranjib Biswal for the fourth seat of the Upper House of the Parliament in the recently concluded polls.
However, the BJD’s three official candidates, Panchayati Raj Minister Kalpataru Das, Handloom and Textile Minister Sarojini Hembrum and senior party vice-president AU Singh Deo got elected. Earlier in 2002, Naveen had tested a virtual defeat indirectly when his bête noire Dillip Ray managed a victory in Rajya Sabha polls as the BJD supremo was clandestinely supporting the Congress nominee.
Anyway, the latest Rajya Sabha election results suggests that while the Congress despite lack of strength and apprehension of cross voting could keep the House intact and even managed to add two more votes to register a straight win, ruling BJD virtually strayed in its voting pattern by wasting excessive votes on official candidates and failed its supported candidate Mohapatra.
However, the BJP, which was initially reluctant to go with the Naveen-sponsored candidate and decided to abstain from voting had rallied behind Mohapatra. The saffron party with the defeat of Mohapatra dubbed Naveen as “betrayer and back-stabber”. Reacting over the defeat of the fourth candidate Mohapatra, BJP State president KV Singh Deo with a heavy heart said, “The BJP did not betray Mohapatra despite the fact that he was a ruling BJD sponsored candidate. But the BJD betrayed him.”
Condemning the betrayal of Naveen, the BJP president said that the attitude of BJD and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been thoroughly exposed. As per the official result announced by the Returning Officer and Assembly Secretary Amita Kumar Sarangi, while AU Singh Deo won by securing 33 first preference votes, Kalpataru Das did it with 32 and Sarajini Hembraum got elected by getting 30 valid first preference votes. Though Hembrum got 31 first preference votes, one vote was rejected. Congress nominee Ranjib Biswal who got 29 first preference votes, two more than the total number of Congress members, got a straight win over his immediate rival Mohapatra, who got only 20 first preference votes with six excess BJD votes having cast in favour of the three official candidates of the BJD.