Three BJD official candidates, including two Ministers, filed their nominations on Tuesday, for elections to the Rajya Sabha from Odisha, while Ranjib Biswal filed his papers as Congress nominee opening the turf to take on the BJD supported independent candidate internationally acclaimed sculptor Padma Bibhushan Raghunath Mohapatra for the fourth seat as both lack requisite numbers for a straight win.
The six Independent members of the Assembly would decide the fate of the two candidates for the fourth post.
On the last day of the filing of nomination for the February 7 biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha for the four seats to be vacant on April 2 next, total eight candidates filed their nominations, including three non-serious candidates.
The ruling BJD fielded Panchayati Raj Minister Kalpataru Das, Handloom and Textile Minister Saraswati Hembram and former Minister AU Sing Deo as party nominees.
The trio filed their papers in two sets each before the Returning Officer and Assembly Secretary Amiya Kumar Sarangi in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and their fellow party MlAs. Each set has the names of MlAs as proposers.
The BJD supported Independent candidate Raghunath Mohapatra, however, filed his nominations through one set with ten ruling party MlAs as supporters. The Chief Minister was also present during the process of filing of papers by Mohapatra.
The three candidates after filing their papers said that they would work for the welfare of the State and raise their voices in the Parliament against the Central apathy and discrimination to Odisha. Panchayati Raj Minister Das defending the BJD support to the Independent candidate Mohapatra for the fourth post hoped that BJP would find him as a suitable nominee.
Congress nominee Biswal, who had first filed a set of nomination, again filed his second set of papers five minutes before the closure of the nomination schedule at 3 pm to avoid the risk of cancellation.
Though Biswal expressed his confidence that being the official Congress candidate with the blessing of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he would win the elections with the support of his party MlAs, fifty per cent of the total 27 MlAs of the party mostly the young brigade were conspicuous by their absence. This has given the impression of a political upheaval in the Congress over Biswal’s candidature.
Elections to the four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha were necessitated as the terms of Ramachandra Khuntia (Congress), Balbir Punj (BJP), Mangala Kissan and Renubala Pradhan (BJD) will expire on April 2.
In the present scenario, while it would be easy going for the three official candidates of the BJD to get elected on the basis of required 90 first preferential votes, 30 for each one, the party is left with 18 first preference vote for Mohapatra putting an uphill task on his prospects.
The BJD has 108 members in the 147 members Assembly. Since the ruling party does not have the required number to send its supported fourth candidate, slight lacunae in the poll strategy would create a loss of face for Patnaik.
The party is trying to garner support of Independent members and the BJP to elect Mohapatra to the Rajya Sabha. The BJP has six members with one party supported Independent. Besides there are four other Independent Members in the House such as Jitu Patnaik, George Tirkey, Rajendra Sahoo, Braja Kishore Pradhan .
While the BJP supported Independent Pratap Sarangi has already signaled to vote for the BJP supported candidate, Rajendra Sahoo has said that he would support the BJD candidate and Tirkey was still to clear his stand.
However, much is dependent on the BJP's decision for the win of Mohapatra. In case BJP extending support to the BJD supported 4th candidate, the first preferential vote in favour of Mohapatra would reach only 27, still three short of the magic number. BJP president KV Singh Deo, however, said extending support to Mohapatra would be taken soon. However, Congress' Biswal has the advantage over Mohapatra having 28 first preferential votes with the support of Independent Member Barja Kishore Pradhan.
Meanwhile, in order to garner the number, the party had revoked the suspension imposed on party MlA Mamata Madhi who faced disciplinary action following her absence in the no confidence motion against the Assembly Speaker during the last Monsoon Session. According to poll experts, as per the rule, the fourth candidate can win the elections by securing highest votes by taking into consideration the second preference votes. Though it requires 30 preferential votes to get elected for the fourth candidates, in case , any candidate gets less first preference vote with higher value of second preference votes would be declared elected. In this case the BJD supported candidate has better chance of winning the elections. The three non-serious candidates filed their papers without any proposers and their nominations are sure to be rejected during scrutiny on Wednesday.
RS polls: BJD hints at horse-trading
The BJD, like the last time’s Rajya Sabha elections, aims at horse trading in the coming polls for the Parliament’s Upper House too, as clearly indicated by a leader of the State’s ruling party after nominations were filed by different candidates on Tuesday.
BJD Rajya Sabha member Sashi Bhusan Behera, participating in a TV debate, repeatedly claimed that his party depends on the “faction-ridden” Congress legislature Party for victory of sculptor Padma Vibhusan Raghunath Mohaptra, whom the BJD has projected as the Independent nominee for the fourth and last seat from the State for the RS polls though the party has no requisite number of 30 MlAs to get him elected.
Behera cloaked the BJD’s assertion with the euphemistic phrase “conscience vote” from some Congress MlAs in favour of Mohapatra because of the sculptor’s eminent standing in the arena of art. The BJD leader also claimed that the BJP’s six MlAs and its associate Independent MlA Pratap Sarangi would vote for Mohapatra.
The BJP State leadership has already stated that the party is in favour of Mohapatra’s candidature pending the party high command’s formal endorsement in this regard.
But the BJP dissident MlA from Bonei Bhimsen Choudhury, who has been suspended from the party for his abstention from the voting in the 2014 RS elections helping the BJD’s the then fourth candidate Baisnab Charan Parida’s win, on Tuesday clearly indicated that he may not toe the party line this time too. And this time, he may not vote for BJD-backed Mohapatra but, instead, support the Congress nominee Ranjib Biswal.
In fact, after the sure-shot win of the BJD’s three candidates on the party’ own strength in the Assembly, the fight for the fourth seat is to be an interesting one between Mohapatra and Biswal, who is a former lok Sabha member and the IPl chairman.
Another interesting aspect of the RS polls this time will be the BJD-BJP tie-up for the first time after the BJD broke its alliance with the saffron party in the 2009 general elections. The BJD and the BJP are yet silent on the Congress’ dig against them that both parties are hands in glove now ahead of this year’s general elections despite BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik’s repeated denunciation the BJP as a “communal party”.
The BJP sources, however, said that if the party refrains from participating in the RS polls, it would ensure the Congress candidate’s win, which would go against the BJP’s interest in the national politics.