Bhubaneswar, March 1: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik on Monday hit out at the BJP over the Rajya Sabha elections, alleging horse-trading and involvement of individuals with criminal backgrounds in the election process.
Reacting strongly to the cross-voting by his MLAs, Patnaik said, “Those who have done cross-voting have criminal records. Even their fathers had faced imprisonment in the past.”
"As has been discussed in the last few days about the BJP and their allies, it is clear what is meant for the horse trading they will do. They have collected a number of people to work for them. Most of them have criminal pasts, I am ashamed to say. Check for yourselves how many of their parents went to jail, or have themselves been threatened by jail. And as recently as yesterday, BJP MLAs were kept in Paradip,” said Patnaik.
The reaction of the former Chief Minister came after several BJD MLAs cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections today with young MLAs – Debi Ranjan Tripathy and Souvik Biswal – openly saying that they have cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections. The fathers of both MLAs were arersted by CBI in mutli-thousand-crore chit fund scam.
Earlier today, Patnaik alleged irregularities during voting for the Rajya Sabha elections, claiming that election norms were violated after a legislator was issued a second ballot paper.
A total of five candidates are in the fray for four Rajya Sabha seats. Ruling BJP has fielded State unit president Manmohan Samal and re-nominated outgoing Rajya Sabha MP Sujeet Kumar, besides backing Independent candidate Dilip Ray for the fourth seat.
Naveen Patnaik-led BJD has nominated Santrupt Misra while eminent urologist Dr Datteswar Hota has been fieled as joint the common candidate of BJD, Congress and CPM.
With numbers stacked in their favour, BJP's Samal and Kumar are expected to sail through, as does Misra of BJD. The real battle is for the fourth seat, where Hota and Ray were locked in a tight contest amid fears of cross-voting and allegations of horse-trading.
Sources said as many as six BJD MLAs and two suspended leigislators have cross-voted for Dilip Ray.
The biennial Rajya Sabha elections are being held to fill 37 seats across 10 states. With polling currently underway, the counting of votes is scheduled to begin at 5 PM today.
The term of 37 members who were elected from Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana will conclude in the month of April, vacating the seats for new members to be elected.
Out of these, 26 candidates have already secured victory unopposed. Voting will now take place for the remaining 11 seats, including four from Odisha, five from Bihar, and two from Haryana.
