Bhubaneswar: Odisha Assembly Tuesday issued a formal notification for by-election of three Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant owing to resignation of three Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MPs.
The MPs are- Pratap Keshari Deb, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and Achutya Samant.
A total of four RS seats have been vacant in Odisha due to resignation of Deb, Patnaik and Samanta along with Anubhav Mohanty after their wins in the recently-held Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
While Samanta and Mohanty won the Kandhamal and Kendrapada Lok Sabha seats respectively, Patnaik was elected to the Assembly from the Khandapada seat in Nayagarh district and Deb won from his bastion of Aul in Kendrapara district.
Since Mohanty’s tenure was left with about a year, by-election to his seat will not be conducted. While Patnaik and Samanta had about five years left in their tenure, Deb had about three years.
In view of the BJD’s strength of 111 members in the Assembly, it should not be difficult for the party to send three of its leaders to the Rajya Sabha this time.