BHUBANESWAR: The ruling BJP has strengthened its political dominance in Odisha after registering a decisive victory in the Rajya Sabha elections.
With state party president Manmohan Samal, sitting MP Sujeet Kumar and party-backed Independent Dilip Ray elected, the outcome reflects the BJP’s growing control over the state’s political landscape following its historic victory in the 2024 general and Assembly elections.
For Samal, it marks a return to the Upper House after more than two decades. He had earlier served as a Rajya Sabha member from April 4, 2000 to May 23, 2004. Samal resigned from the Upper House to contest the Dhamnagar Assembly seat in Bhadrak district and won. He served as a cabinet minister handling key portfolios such as Revenue and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare in his first term as MLA.
A four-time president of the BJP’s Odisha unit, Samal currently plays a pivotal role in the party’s organisational expansion in the state. He was elected unopposed as state president on July 8, 2025, after having earlier served as the party’s ad-hoc chief ahead of the 2024 general elections. During that period, he steered the BJP to an unprecedented performance in Odisha, when the party formed the government for the first time and secured a record 20 Lok Sabha seats.
Kumar’s re-election to the Rajya Sabha also reflects the BJP’s strategy of strengthening its intellectual and policy-oriented leadership in Parliament. Kumar, who had earlier been elected to the Upper House from BJD, resigned both from the party and Rajya Sabha on September 6, 2024 before joining the BJP. He was subsequently re-elected to the Upper House in December 2024 along with Mamata Mahanta, another former BJD MP who switched sides.
Hailing from Kalahandi district, Kumar brings strong academic and international credentials to the party’s parliamentary ranks. He holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and has completed executive education at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
An engineering graduate from Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla, Kumar is widely seen as a technocrat, capable of articulating development and governance issues with a global perspective.
However, the most dramatic element of the election was the victory of veteran leader Dilip Ray, who contested as an Independent with BJP backing. A former Union and state minister, Ray once again demonstrated his reputation as a political strategist capable of overcoming adverse circumstances.
This is the second time Ray has managed to secure a Rajya Sabha berth as an Independent by engineering a split in Opposition votes. The first instance was in 2002 when he won a Rajya Sabha seat soon after being expelled from the BJD, a party he had co-founded. On that occasion too, he secured victory through cross-voting by BJD and Congress rebels and support of the BJP.
Ray’s return to Parliament is expected to add to the BJP’s political influence from Odisha in the Upper House. Until now, the party’s presence from the state was limited, with Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw being the only member aligned with the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. He was elected twice with the support of BJD.