Bhubaneswar: BJD candidates Debashish Samantaray & Subhasish Khuntia and BJP candidate Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw were elected to Rajya Sabha unopposed.
Odisha’s ruling BJD supported the candidature of BJP’s Ashwini Vaishnaw in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha. Soon after the saffron party announced the candidature of Union minister Vaishnaw, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, in a statement said, the BJD supports Vaishnaw’s candidature for the ‘larger interest of the state’s railways and telecom development’.
Vaishnaw was elected to the Upper House of Parliament with the BJD’s support in 2019.
Three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha will fall vacant as the terms of Vaishnaw, Amar Patnaik and Prashanta Nanda in the Upper House are due to end in April this year.