Ending all speculations for the past few days, Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik on Friday nominated three party leaders, including two former Ministers, for the June 11 Rajya Sabha elections.
The two former Ministers are Bishnu Charan Das and Prasanna Acharya. The third candidate is State Planning Board Deputy Chairman N Bhaskar Rao.
Patanik announced the names at his residence, where the candidates were present.
The tenures of three Rajya Sabha members Pyarimohan Mohapatra, Bhupinder Singh and Baishnab Parida from the State would end on July 1.
Das and Acharya are also presidents of the party for Jagatsinghpur and Rayagada districts, respectively. Acharya represented the party in the lok Sabha in the past.
Though speculations were doing the rounds that Bhupinder Singh, who was nominated to the Upper House in 2014 for two years after the demise of Kalpataru Das and who also met Patnaik on Friday morning, could be the party’s candidate this time too, the BJD president chose Rao.
“Naveenbabu’s announcement is a historical one. I have been working for Bijubabu since my student life and in the BJD since its inception. I will endeavour to live up to the trust that the party president has reposed on me,” said Bishnu Das.
He, however, dismissed the talk that by choosing him the Chief Minister played a Dalit card.
Among the other names that were in speculations included former Minister and BJD spokesperson Pratap Keshari Deb, former Minister Raghunath Mohanty, Bimbadhar Kuanr and sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik.