BHUBANESWAR: BJD Rajya Sabha member Subash Chandra Singh’s candidature as the mayoral candidate of the ruling party for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has opened a window of opportunity for the BJP to get a member elected to the Upper House when an election will be held in July.
Three BJD Rajya Sabha members, Prasanna Acharya, N Bhaskar Rao and Sasmit Patra will retire on July 1, 2022 after completion of their terms. If Singh wins the election for the post of mayor of CMC, another vacancy will be created taking the total number of vacancies from Odisha to four.
And if the Election Commission of India (ECI) announces election to all the four vacancies on a single date, the ruling BJD will require 120 first preference votes to win all the seats. In case of four vacancies, 30 first preference votes will be required to win a seat.
However, as the BJD’s strength in the Assembly now is 114, its first preference votes excluding the Speaker will be 113. The vote tally will increase to 115 if it gets the support of the lone CPM member and Independent MLA. However, it will still need five more first preference votes to win all the four seats.
The BJP’s strength in the Assembly now is 22 after the party lost the by-poll to the Balasore Assembly constituency. The party will need eight first preference votes to win the fourth seat. The ruling BJD will have 23 first preference surplus votes after bagging the three seats.
This is where the main calculation comes in. There will be no problem for BJD if BJP does not field a candidate. But if the BJP fields a candidate, the ruling BJD will have to bank on second preference votes to win.
Though the issue has taken a backseat because of the ensuing urban local body polls (ULBs), political observers are waiting to see if the situation will be similar to that in June, 2019 when the BJD had to give a seat to the BJP. The situation will complicate further if the nine-member Congress abstains from voting as it does not have the strength to field a candidate.