Bhubaneswar: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha pulled off a double victory Friday winning all the three Rajya Sabha seats unopposed. The BJD also won the by-poll to the Brajarajnagar Assembly seat in Jharsuguda district by a huge margin. The three BJD candidates who made it to the Rajya Sabha are Sulata Deo, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj and Sasmit Patra. The last named was re-nominated to the Rajya Sabha. The three were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha as neither the BJP nor the Congress could field any candidates due to lack of numbers in the Assembly.
The three seats will fall vacant on July 1 when the tenure of N Bhaskar Rao, Prasanna Acharya and Patra’s tenure in the Rajya Sabha ends. While Patra has been elected twice in a row, Deo and Mangaraj are first timers.
They were awarded the certificate of election by the returning officer here in the Assembly premises. They thanked Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik and said that Odisha’s concerns will be rightfully placed in the Parliament. The election was slated to take place on June 10 but as no other candidates filed their nomination, the trio were elected unopposed.
The BJD has 113 MLAs in the 147-member assembly while the opposition BJP and Congress have 22 and nine legislators respectively.