Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jun 3:

All the three BJD nominees for polls to 3 Rajya Sabha (RS) seats from Odisha were elected unopposed today, informed RS election Returning Officer.

BJD RS nominees

The BJD nominees-- Prasanna Acharya, Bishnu Das and N Bhaskar Rao-- were elected unopposed to the House of Elders as nomination papers of three independent candidates were earlier rejected on June 1.

The nomination papers of independent candidates K Shyambabu Subbudhi, Lala Arun Singh, and Akshaya Kumar Behera were rejected as they lacked security deposit and the requisite number of proposers for their candidature.

With no other candidates in the race, entry of BJD nominees to Rajya Sabha was a mere formality.

Worth mentioning, to get elected to the Upper House of the Parliament each candidate requires the support of 37 MLAs. Notably, the BJD has 117 MLAs in 147 member Odisha Assembly.

The election was necessitated as three Rajya Sabha MPs – Pyarimohan Mohapatra, Baishnab Parida, and Bhupinder Singh – completed their tenure on July 1, 2016.