Bhubaneswar: The BJD Saturday suspended six of its MLAs for cross-voting during the recent election to four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha.
The suspended legislators are Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Naba Kishor Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol) and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki).
The decision was taken at the party’s political affairs committee (PAC) meeting presided over by BJD chief Naveen Patnaik.
BJD’s disciplinary committee, at its meeting Friday, had recommended action against the six MLAs for violating party orders and indulging in anti-party activities.
“…The six MLAs are hereby suspended from the party with immediate effect for their involvement in anti-party activities, including cross-voting, in the recent election to Rajya Sabha, violating the core principle of BJD constitution, which mandates absolute loyalty to the party’s collective decisions,” the party’s office order said.
Opposition chief whip Pramila Mallik said the party would write to the Assembly Speaker seeking the disqualification of the six suspended MLAs.
“If required, the party will also take the matter to court,” Mallik said.
On March 17, the six MLAs were issued show-cause notices, and they submitted their replies to the party Friday.
In their replies, the MLAs separately asked the chief whip to withdraw the notices and also threatened to sue her.
In the Rajya Sabha elections, the ruling BJP won two of the four seats while the opposition BJD and a saffron party-backed Independent candidate Dilip Ray bagged one seat each in the biennial polls held last Monday.
The elected RS MPs are Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar (BJP), Santrupt Misra (BJD) and Independent nominee Dilip Ray.
The opposition common candidate, Dr Datteswar Hota, fielded by BJD and supported by Congress and CPI(M), was defeated even after having the required numbers.
Hota lost the polls as six BJD MLAs and three Congress MLAs crossvoted in favour of Ray.
Meanwhile, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) has also suspended three of its MLAs — Ramesh Jena (Sanakhemundi), Dasarathi Gomango (Mohana) and Sofia Firdous (Barabati-Cuttack)– on charges of anti-party activities and cross-voting.
So far, 11 MLAs who allegedly cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections have been placed under suspension.
Besides the six suspended Saturday, the BJD had earlier taken similar action against Arvind Mohapatra (Patkura) and Sanatan Mahakud (Champua) for anti-party activities.
Now, the number of suspended MLAs in the BJD has increased to eight.
The current position in the 147-member Odisha Assembly is: BJP has 79 members and support of three Independent MLAs, BJD has 42 after suspension of eight MLAs, Congress 11 after suspension of three MLAs, and CPI(M) one.
