As BJP’s dummy candidate Jagannath Pradhan withdrew his nomination on Tuesday clearing the path for party’s official nominee Mamta Mohanta for Rajya Sabha byelection for the lone seat from Odisha, the latter is going to be elected unopposed to the upper house. The byelections to 12 Rajya Sabha seats, including the one from Odisha, are scheduled to be held on September 3.
After the defeat of the Biju Janta Dal in both assembly and Lok Sabha polls, the Rajya Sabha byelection has come as another humiliation for the Naveen Patnaik-led regional party. In fact, Mamta Mohanta was BJD’s Rajya Sabha MP and she resigned unexpectedly from the post of MP as well as as from the BJD making allegations against party on July 31. She had gone to Rajya Sabha on a BJD ticket in 2020. Her Rajya Sabha tenure was to be over in 2026.
Mamta joined the BJP a day after she resigned as MP and from the BJD. At that time, it was presumed that BJP’s Odisha President Manmohan Samal will go to Rajya Sabha after Mamta vacated the seat.
Since Samal had lost the assembly election, it was expected that he may get a berth in the Union cabinet as BJP had come to power in Odisha on its own for the first time under his leadership. It was also predicted that Mamta, a leader of kudumi community from north Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, will be accommodated elsewhere in some official position which could be proposed North Odisha Development Council’s Chairperson.
But the BJP played a different game which it has done in some other places to increase its number in Rajya Sabha where the ruling party is short of majority. In Odisha, the BJP renominated Mamta when byelection date was announced. But, after she filed her nomination, another BJP leader Jagannath Pradhan,who had contested last assembly election unsuccessfully from Bhubaneswar Middle, filed nomination for the Rajya Sabha byelection as an independent, leading to speculations.
Pradhan, however, withdrew from the race on Tuesday. “I submitted my nomination following the party’s directive. Today, I withdrew it as per party’s instruction. I was assigned this task by the BJP leadership and I have fulfilled it as a disciplined party member,” Pradhan said.
Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, the state BJP in-charge, mentioned that Pradhan was a dummy candidate.
Since there is no other candidate in the fray, Mamta’s reelection is guaranteed. In the number game, it was natural that BJP will win this Rajya Sabha byelection since it is for a single seat. Odisha has 10 seats in Rajya Sabha. Out of that the BJD had nine before Mamta quit. Now, the BJD will be reduced to eight and the BJP’s number will go upto two including Union Railway Minister Aswini Vaishnaw who had gone to Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms with the BJD support.
After Mamta’s switch to the BJP, there had been speculations that one or two BJD Rajya Sabha MPs, too, would follow her suit. In the last Lok Sabha election, the BJD could not win even a single seat though it had won 12 out of the 21 seats in 2019, leaving eight to the BJP and one to the Congress.
This time, the BJP bagged 20 Lok Sabha seats, leaving one seat to the Congress. In the assembly polls, out of 147 seats, the BJP got 74 seats while the BJD came down to 51 seats. The Congress got 14 seats and the CPI(M) one. There are three independent MLAs who support the BJP.
Political circles say the BJD has paid heavily by trusting and supporting the BJP during the last ten years.
