Bhubaneswar: The three BJD nominees for Rajya Sabha poll on Monday filed their nomination papers before Assembly Secretary Amiya Kumar Sarangi, the returning officer, in the presence of party supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Each candidate submitted two sets of papers having 10 proposers.
On May 27, Patnaik had named Prasanna Acharya, Bishnu Das and N. Bhaskar Rao as party candidates for the three seats in the Upper House set to fall vacant on July 1.
Given the numbers in the Assembly, the election of the three candidates of BJD to the Upper House is a mere formality. With just a day left for nominations to close, the BJP and the Congress are yet to take a call on whether to field a candidate or not.
With 117 members in the House, BJD has more than the 37 first preference votes that it needs to win each of the three seats. All three BJD candidates are thus set to sail through.
Sarangi told media persons, “The last date for withdrawal of nominations is June 3. If the nomination papers remain valid till that date, then elections will not be held.”
As per the notification, the Rajya Sabha poll is scheduled to be held on May 11.