BJD candidates elected to Rajya Sabha uncontested

Bhubaneswar: Three Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidates – Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Achyuta Samanta and Prasanta Nanda were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Thursday after the last date of withdrawal of nomination ended today.

Returning officer Patil Rajesh Prabhakar declared the names of three ruling party candidates as elected members to the upper house of the Parliament. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and Prasanta Nanda received their certificates from the returning officer at the Odisha Legislative Assembly.

Earlier on Tuesday, the nomination papers of all the three ruling BJD candidates were accepted after scrutiny. The returning officer had rejected the candidature of independent candidate Subash Mohapatra due to lack of proposers in his support.

The three elected BJD members will assume office after the tenure of MPs Dilip Tirkey, AU Singh Deo and BJD-backed independent candidate AV Swami ends in April 2018.

“Personally I am very happy and proud for being given the opportunity to represent Odisha in the upper house of the Parliament and I hope that I will not disappoint in raising issues for the welfare of the State before the Centre and the Parliament,” Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said after his election.

“The Chief Minister has already clarified our agenda when he called on all the MPs on March 3 and accordingly we are going to put forth our demands in the interest of the state in a systematic way,” said Prasant Nanda.