The two Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidates and the sole Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for by-elections to three Rajya Sabha seats from the State filed their nomination papers at the State Assembly here on Monday.
BJD’s IT Cell chairman and spokesperson Amar Patnaik and spokesperson Sasmit Patra filed their nominations before the Returning Officer, the Assembly Secretary, in the presence of party supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha.
BJP candidate Ashwini Vaishnaw, a former bureaucrat, also filed his nominations before the Returning Officer on the day.
Vaishnaw, who was Private Secretary to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had joined the BJP only two days ago, on June 22, a day after the party fielded him as its Rajya Sabha nominee.
Polling for the Rajya Sabha seats will be held on July 5 between 9 am and 4 pm and counting of votes will take place at 5 pm on the very day.
The three seats which have fallen vacant were held by BJD’s Achyutananda Samanta, Pratap Keshari Deb and Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
While Samanta has, meanwhile, been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Kandhamal seat, Deb and Patnaik have from the Aul and Khandapada Assembly constituencies, respectively.
The terms of Samanta and Patnaik in the Upper House of Parliament were to end in April 2024 while Deb’s term in was till July 2022.
