Bhubaneswar: The Governing BJD today announced open heart support to BJD nominee and Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for Rajya Sabha election in the State to be held on February 27.
“Biju Janata Dal will support the candidature of Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister, railways, Communication and Information and technology for the larger interest of state’s railways and telecom development in the ensuing election to Rajya Sabha-2024,” BJD President and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said in a press statement today.
The Chief Minister has announced his support just a few minutes after BJP announced the name of Shri Vaishnaw as its candidate for RS election in Odisha even though it doesn’t have the required number of MLAs to win the lone seat.
On the other hand, the Governing BJD nominated only two candidates even though it has the majority to win all three Rajya Sabha seats.
Two BJD candidates Debashish Samantaray and Subhasish Khuntia filed their nomination papers for the poll yesterday.
From this support of the BJD, Shri Vaishnaw is all set to be reelected to the Upper House of the Parliament from Odisha again during the ensuing polls for three RS seats.
He was earlier elected to RS in 2019 from BJP with the support of ruling BJD. So, it is clear that the same equation will be followed by the BJD and BJP this time too.
The Union Railway Minister, who hails from Rajasthan, was an IAS officer serving as Collector of Cuttack and Balasore districts in Odisha.
The 1994-batch IAS officer had worked till 2003. He quit the IAS job in 2010. He joined the BJP in 2019 and then directly elected to RS and then became Cabinet Minister with two powerful portfolios.
Perhaps for the first time in Indian history, a bureaucrat turned politician has been given such due importance at State and Central level.
However, no one knows why the BJD has been giving one crucial RS seat to the BJP twice. Is it leading towards an undeclared alliance between the BJD and BJP, said a political analyst.
The BJD has ensured its support to the BJP whenever it looks towards regional parties for passing of important Bills in Parliament and election to President and Vice-President of India. On the other hand, the BJP is also not so aggressive towards BJD, like many other regional parties.
Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sambalpur and addressed two programmes. In the government programme he called Naeen as Mitra (my friend) while in the public rally he did not speak a single word against the BJD, Naveen Patnaik or the State Government.
Three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha will fall vacant as Ashwini Vaishnaw, Amar Patnaik and Prashanta Nanda are due to retire from the Upper House in April this year. So, elections for the three seats will be held on February 27 between 9 am and 4 pm. The counting of votes will be conducted at 5 pm the same day.