At least eight MLAs of the Opposition Biju Janata Dal on Monday reportedly voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party-supported independent nominee Dilip Ray in the Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha, The Hindu reported.
Four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha were due to fall vacant on April 2 and elections had been held on Monday to fill them. Voting ended at 6 pm in the state.
Amid polling on Monday, BJD deputy chief whip Pratap Keshari Deb said that eight party MLAs cross-voted in favour of Ray, who won the seat.
Additionally, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee chief Bhakta Charan Das also told reporters that three of its MLAs – Ramesh Jena, Dasarathi Gomango and Sofia Firdous – had voted in favour of the ruling BJP in the state.
“The party will certainly take action against the erring members who jumped party discipline,” Das said.
However, Ray said that everybody knew his relationship with leaders across party lines, The Hindu reported.
“I pay my gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister Mohan Majhi and state BJP president Manmohan Samal for their total support,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “I have got success because of support of many in BJD and Congress.”
Earlier in the day, BJD chief Naveen Patnaik accused the BJP of “horse-trading”, The Hindu reported.
“They [BJP] have collected a number of persons who voted for them,” the newspaper quoted the former chief minister as saying. “Most of them have criminal past, I am ashamed to say. You can check yourself as to how many of their parents went to jail and how they were with them.”
In total, elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats in 10 states had been scheduled for Monday. Of these, 26 candidates had already secured their wins unopposed. Voting had taken place on Monday for the remaining 11 seats, which included five from Bihar, four from Odisha and two from Haryana.
Apart from Ray, two other BJP-backed candidates – Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar – won in Odisha, The Hindu reported. BJD candidate Santrupta Mishra won the fourth seat.
Bribery allegations
On Sunday, two men had been arrested in Karnataka for allegedly attempting to bribe MLAs from the Odisha unit of the Congress ahead of the elections.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar accused the BJP of trying to influence the legislators as part of “Operation Lotus” by offering them Rs 5 crore to cross-vote in favour of a candidate backed by the party.
“Operation Lotus” refers to the alleged attempts by the BJP to orchestrate defections and poach legislators from Opposition parties by offering them bribes and other incentives.
The development came after eight Congress MLAs from Odisha were moved to a resort near Bengaluru on Thursday amid concerns about possible cross-voting in the election for the four Rajya Sabha seats from the state.
Shivakumar added that two of the four persons allegedly involved in Sunday’s incident were apprehended at the resort.
Meanwhile, the BJD and the Congress had also issued showcause notices to three MLAs on Sunday for allegedly violating party whips ahead of the elections.
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