BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik on Friday announced two spokespersons of the regional outfit, retired principal accountant general of Odisha Amar Patnaik and Sasmit Patra as the party’s Rajya Sabha candidates while announcing support to BJP nominee, former IAS officer Ashwini Vaishnav.
The BJD’s support for BJP’s candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls has come two days after the Chief Minister extended full support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of ‘one nation one election’ at the meeting of presidents of all political parties in New Delhi.
The BJD had also supported BJP’s candidate for Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla.
The Chief Minister’s announcement has left many BJD hopefuls disappointed as he ignored the claims of many senior leaders of the party who were in the race for a berth in the Upper House.
The aspiring leaders not taken into consideration by Naveen include former Lok Sabha member from Bhubaneswar Prasanna Patsani and former Berhampur MLA Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik.
However, there was some confusion after the announcement of BJD candidates by the Chief Minister as the BJP had by then declared Vaishnav as its Rajya Sabha nominee from Odisha.
The Chief Minister later clarified that Vaishnav is BJP candidate and as per discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJD will extend support to his candidature.
Vaishnav was an IAS officer and private secretary to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He had also served as collector of Cuttack.
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More than two dozen senior BJD leaders were in the race for Rajya Sabha seats. As Patsani and Chau Patnaik were assured by the Chief Minister of Rajya Sabha berths, they were denied tickets for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, while several other leaders who had lost elections by close margins were also hopeful of their accommodation.
By-polls to the three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha were necessitated after the resignation of BJD members Achyutananda Samant, Pratap Keshari Deb and Soumya Ranjan Patnaik. While Samant was elected to Lok Sabha from Kandhamal constituency, Deb and Patnaik won from Aul and Khandapara Assembly seats respectively in the recently concluded elections.