BHUBANESWAR: With four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha set to be filled in the second week of June, speculations over the replacements in the Upper House has begun to mount.
All the four Rajya Sabha MPs belong to the ruling BJD. While Prasanna Acharya, N Bhaskar Rao and Sasmit Patra are to retire on July 1, another member Subash Singh will resign as he has been elected Cuttack mayor.
Geographically speaking the three vacancies will be equally spread in western, southern and coastal Odisha. If the vacancy created by resignation of Singh is taken into account, two seats will be vacant from coastal region of the State.
Sources said that Patra has a bright chance of getting repeated because of his performance in the Rajya Sabha and the fact that he served only a truncated term. Similarly, if performance alone will be taken as criteria for getting another term, chances of Acharya cannot be ruled out altogether.
Party sources maintained that Rao’s performance has not been up to the mark in the Rajya Sabha as he has not spoken in the House during the last four years. Several senior leaders of the party who were assured by Chief Minister as a Rajya Sabha seat when they were denied ticket in the 2019 elections are hopeful that word given to them will be kept. Besides, name of a prominent woman politician from western Odisha is doing the rounds in political circle as a possible replacement in one of the vacant seats.
Sources said that exercise for nominating Rajya Sabha candidates has already been started by the Chief Minister. The announcement of candidates will be made after the reshuffle in the council of ministers and appointments to State public sector undertakings.
The BJD having 114 MLAs in the State Assembly will have no problem in getting all its four candidates elected. The BJP and Congress strength in the Assembly are 22 and 9 respectively. Congress does not even have the numbers to field a candidate on its own.