Bhubaneswar, Mar 16 (PTI) The ruling BJP on Monday won two of the four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha, while the opposition BJD and a saffron party-backed Independent candidate bagged one seat each in the biennial polls held here, officials said.
Returning Officer and Odisha Assembly secretary Satyabrata Rout handed over certificates to the four newly elected members.
BJP’s Odisha unit president Manmohan Samal and the party’s MP Sujeet Kumar secured 35 votes each to win the elections.
BJD’s official candidate Santrupt Misra won the polls by securing 31 votes.
BJP-backed Independent candidate and former Union minister Dilip Ray won the fourth seat through second-preference votes, defeating opposition-backed nominee Datteswar Hota, who was supported by the BJD, Congress and CPI(M).
Both Ray and Hota were tied by securing 23 first preference votes each. Later, Ray was elected as the winner after counting of the second preference votes, the official said.
All 147 members of the Assembly exercised their franchise in the elections.
The elections witnessed cross-voting, with several opposition MLAs allegedly supporting BJP candidates and the BJP-backed Independent.
While the number of BJP and its supported Independent MLAs was 82 in the 147-member House, the saffron party candidates secured 93 first preference votes, which was 11 more than its strength in the Assembly. These 11 votes came from BJD (8) and Congress (3) MLAs, the official said.
In the Assembly, the BJP has 79 MLAs and the support of three Independents, while the BJD has 48 legislators after the suspension of two members. The Congress has 14 MLAs and the CPI(M) one.
Opposition deputy chief whip and BJD MLA P K Deb claimed that eight BJD legislators cross-voted in favour of BJP-supported candidates.
He identified the MLAs as Chandramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Subasini Jena (Basta), Souvic Biswal (Chuodwar-Cuttack), Naba Kishor Mallick (Jaydev), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol) and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki).
Earlier, OPCC president Bhakta Charan Das had said that three of his party MLAs voted in favour of BJP candidates by violating the party norms.
“Three of our MLAs – Ramesh Jena, Dasarathi Gomango and Sofia Fordous – voted against the party decision,” Das claimed.
The 2026 Rajya Sabha election results were also seen as reminiscent of the 2002 polls, when Dilip Ray, contesting as an Independent candidate, had won the seat amid large-scale cross-voting.
Another notable feature of the polls was the return of BJP state president Manmohan Samal to the Upper House after a gap of 22 years. He had earlier served as a Rajya Sabha member from 2000 to 2004. Samal, however, had lost the 2024 Assembly elections from Chandbali constituency.
Sujeet Kumar, currently a Rajya Sabha MP, has been re-elected. His present term was scheduled to expire on April 2. Kumar had joined the BJP in September 2024 after resigning from the BJD and was subsequently renominated by the party for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Similarly, BJD’s newly elected RS MP Santrupt Misra is an entrepreneur-turned-politician. He joined the BJD ahead of the 2024 general elections and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Cuttack in 2024.
Ray, a veteran leader in Odisha politics, has served twice as an MLA and was the state’s Industries Minister between 1990 and 1995. He has also been a Rajya Sabha member earlier and served as Union minister under former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee, IK Gujral and H D Deve Gowda. PTI AAM AAM MNB
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