Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday announced party spokesperson Pratap Deb as the party nominee for Rajya Sabha while former Finance Minister Pradip Amat will be the speaker of the State Assembly.
Election of Pratap Deb during the RS by-poll on May 25 is a mere formality as BJD has a thumping majority in the State Assembly. Deb is currently occupying the position of the State Housing Board chairman. He lost the 2014 election as a BJD candidate from the Aul assembly constituency. Deb was the Technical Education and Training and IT minister in Naveen Patnaik government during the third term.
The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant after Bishnu Charan Das resigned from the Upper House following his appointment as deputy chairman of the Odisha State Planning Board. His term of office would have ended on July 1, 2022.
Meanwhile, Pradip Amat will be the new speaker of the State Assembly. He will be filling in the post after Niranjan Pujari was inducted as a Cabinet Minister into the Naveen Patnaik government in the recent ministry reshuffle.