CUTTACK: Petitions challenging the election of seven MLAs, including deputy chief minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo, and Jajpur Lok Sabha MP Rabi Narayan Behera, were filed in the Orissa High Court on Thursday, which was last day for filing such pleas.
The Representation of Peoples’ Act, 1951 provides a 45-days deadline from the date of election of a candidate for filing of election petition. The results of general elections - 2024 in Odisha were declared on June 4. As two election petitions were filed earlier, altogether nine such pleas have been filed in the high court.
Among those filed on Thursday included BJD candidate Saroj Kumar Meher’s petition challenging the election of BJP MLA and deputy chief minister KV Singh Deo from Patnagarh. Meher who lost by a margin of 1,357 votes has questioned the entire counting process and sought declaration of election of Singh Deo as void.
Similarly, BJP’s Jagannath Pradhan has challenged the election of BJD MLA Ananta Narayan Jena from Bhubaneswar-Central raising questions about the counting process, especially postal ballots, while seeking fresh polls. Pradhan lost to Jena by a narrow margin of only 37 votes.
In another petition, former BJD minister Ashok Chandra Panda challenged the election of BJP MLA Babu Singh from Bhubaneswar-Ekmara constituency. Singh won by a margin of 731 votes. BJD’s Bishnubrata Routray also filed a petition challenging the election of Congress MLA Ashok Kumar Das from Basudevpur constituency. Routray lost to Das by a margin of 571 votes.
Former Bargarh MLA and BJD leader Debesh Acharya also moved the high court against election of BJP MLA Ashwini Sarangi. He alleged that Sarangi provided false information on his criminal cases and assets in the affidavit submitted with his nomination for the Assembly polls.
Two petitions were filed by Giriraj Singh Majhi and Manoj Kumar Panda claiming to be voters of Kantabanji and Berhampur Assembly constituencies respectively. While Majhi challenged the election of BJP’s Laxman Bag from Kantabanji, Panda challenged the election of BJP MLA Anil Kumar Panda from Berhampur. Former chief minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik and former MLA Ramesh Chandra Chau Pattanayak lost to Bag and Panda by a margin of 16,344 votes and 18,709 votes from Kantabanji and Berhampur respectively.
Former MP Sarmistha Sethi of BJD has also filed a petition challenging the election of BJP’s Rabi Narayan Behera from Jajpur parliamentary constituency. Sethi lost to Behera by a margin of 1,587 votes.
Earlier, two petitions were filed by former minister Dilip Ray of BJP and BJD’s former MLA Dipali Das who had lost from the Rourkela and Jharsuguda constituencies respectively. Ray had lost to former BJD minister Sarada Prasad Nayak by a margin of 3,552 votes while Dipali lost to BJP’s Tankadhar Tripathy by 1,333 votes.