BHUBANESWAR: Biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats, including three from Odisha, will be held on June 11.
The elections have been necessitated as 55 members from 15 states will retire between June and August besides the two seats vacated by Anand Sharma (Congress) and Vijay Mallya (independent) from Rajasthan and Karnataka respectively.
Those who will retire from Odisha include Pyarimohan Mohapatra (Independent), Baisnab Parida and Bhupinder Singh (both BJD). Mohapatra was elected to Rajya Sabha for the second time on July 2, 2010. However, he later he fell out with chief minister Naveen Patnaik and was expelled from the party. Parida was elected to the upper house on July 2, 2010 while Singh who joined BJD from Congress before the 2014 elections was elected to Rajya Sabha in a by-poll on June 26, 2014.
However, the BJD which has a strength of 117 out of 147 seats in the assembly is likely to win all the three seats this time. The Congress which has 16 members and BJP 10 in the assembly do not have numbers to contest the RS polls as 38 votes are required to win a seat. Besides, the assembly has two independent, one CPM and one Samata Kranti Dal members.
Race among the BJD leaders for a berth in the upper house has already started. Party spokesman and former minister Pratap Deb said chief minister Naveen Patnaik will start the consultation process for selection candidates from next week.
While Deb has emerged as a front runner, Singh is likely to be continued as he only got a two year term last time.
The third seat will be open as Parida is unlikely to selected again for his anti-Naveen stand on the spread of Odia language in the State.
According to the Election Commission, notification for the polls will be issued on May 24. Filing of nomination papers will start on the same day. The last date for filing of nomination papers will be on May 31 while scrunity will be held on June 1. The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers will be June 4.
Polling will be held on June 11 from 9 am to 4 pm while counting and the declaration of results will be done the same day from 5 pm.