The Rajya Sabha elections for four vacancies from Odisha, for which voting took place on Monday in the State Assembly at Bhubaneswar, will always be a memorable part of the state's political history.
It was the third setback for Biju Janata Dal supremo Naveen Patnaik (80) after his dethronement in the 2024 general elections, that had ended his 24-year consecutive rule in Odisha, followed by the BJD’s humiliating defeat in the Nawapara Assembly byelection in November last year, which was the party’s own seat that it won in the general elections.
On Monday’s Rajya Sabha election, though, according to the respective strengths of MLAs, the ruling BJP got two seats and the main Opposition party, BJD, won one seat. The fourth seat was won by the BJP-supported independent candidate: former Union Minister and India’s well-known hotelier Dilip Ray, because of the cross-voting of eight BJD MLAs—besides three from Congress—though for the first time, the BJD supremo had tied up with the third opposition party, Congress, and had fielded a common independent candidate.
Besides the BJD and Congress joining hands to become a topic of discussion at the national level, the pre-voting events affecting all three main parties—with their MLAs sheltered separately at Bengaluru, Paradip, and the BJD supremo’s own home in Bhubaneswar—had never been seen earlier, particularly in Rajya Sabha elections.
In this Rajya Sabha election, the ruling BJP had fielded its state president Manmohan Samal and sitting Rajya Sabha member Sujeet Kumar.
Corporate giant Dr Santrupta Mishra, a former director of the Aditya Birla group who has been associated with Naveen Patnaik and his party for quite some time, became a BJD nominee.
Kumar had gone to the Rajya Sabha originally on a BJD ticket but after the BJP came to power in the state, he resigned from the BJD and Rajya Sabha, along with a female BJD member, Mamta Mohanta.
However, both were sent to the Rajya Sabha immediately for the half-term. Now, Kumar is lucky to get a full term to the Rajya Sabha to BJP.
In an Assembly of 147 MLAs, the ruling BJP has 79 and three independents. The BJD has 48. So, both parties had no difficulty in winning two and one each in 30 first-preference votes.
But the real battle was for the fourth seat. The BJP supported Dilip Ray, founder and owner of the Mayfair hotel chain, who has a pan-Indian presence and rich experience in politics as minister at the state and the Centre.
Known as a close associate of Odisha’s former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik, the late father of Naveen, Ray was considered one of the founder members of the Biju Janata Dal, and one of the architects of its alliance with the BJP in the late 1990s.
But he later fell out with Naveen Patnaik and moved over to the BJP.
Since then, he had many friends in BJD, and in 2002, he had also won as an independent candidate to the Rajya Sabha when Patnaik was Chief Minister, and many assumed it wouldn't be difficult for him to win this time.
Besides the support of surplus MLAs of the BJP, Ray needed only eight extra votes.
Against him, the Opposition fielded the eminent Dr Datteswar Hota as an independent candidate. For him, the BJD and Congress united for the first time.
Otherwise, in the state, the BJD, and its former national avatar, Janata Dal, were known as anti-Congress.
Naveen Patnaik joined politics after his father’s death in 1997, and later broke away with his father’s followers and formed a regional party in his father’s name, with which the BJP—under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani—tied up.
The two-party alliance defeated Congress in the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections and took over from the state’s Congress ministry in 2000 to form an alliance government under the chief ministership of Naveen Patnaik.
Since then, the Congress has been out of power in the state and is now the third major party.
After the BJD broke its alliance with the BJP before the 2009 general elections because of communal trouble in the Kandhamal district—in which the Sangh Parivar was allegedly involved—the BJD maintained an equidistant stand from both the BJP and the Congress.
Before this Rajya Sabha election, the BJD and Congress were supporting the common candidate, Dr Hota, whom the communists also supported, as a possible new scenario developed.
Though their candidate has lost, in the future, if the BJD takes Congress and other non-BJP parties like the CPM and CPI, it may bring about a secular front.
That case would likely prove to be a headache for the BJP.
As it is in the 2024 assembly elections, the BJD had got more than one per cent of the votes in comparison to the BJP, though it was routed in all 21 Lok Sabha seats.
Future developments are expected to provide a course of action.
Since the BJD supremo has age and health issues and the party is still divided because of internal differences. One such issue is that of his former secretary V.K. Pandian—a Tamil Nadu-born IAS officer who had resigned before the 2024 elections—and later, his IAS officer wife Sujata Kartikeyan also quitting her job amid speculations that she may take over party affairs.
The party workers had been concerned about the future of an organisation where the leader was a bachelor and no one from their family had shown an interest in politics so far.
Owing to such internal differences before the Rajya Sabha elections, Naveen Patnaik has suspended two of his MLAs—Arabinda Mohapatra and Sanatan Mahakud.
Mohapatra is the son of former minister Bijoy Mohapatra, a close associate of Biju Patnaik who had earlier fallen out with Naveen Patnaik.
After the Rajya Sabha result, the senior Mohapatra declared: ‘Naveen babu should self analyse.’
Before the Rajya Sabha poll, former MP R.K. Jena quit the BJD and joined the BJP. His wife, BJD MLA Subhasini Jena, has cross-voted now.
Pravat Biswal, the former MLA of BJD, had openly protested against the party’s Rajya Sabha selection and got suspended before the election.
Now, his MLA son Souvik Biswal has gone against the BJD in a Rajya Sabha vote.
Debiranjan Tripathy, a BJD MLA, has also gone against the party because of an alliance with the Congress.
His father, Pravat Tripathy, was earlier the party’s MLA and had revolted earlier on party affairs. Of course, in the cross-voting, the fear of use of central agencies is suspected to have worked.
Before the election, the Congress party took eight of its 14 MLAs to Bengaluru to avoid poaching.
Since Congress is in power in Karnataka, the place was safe. However, over there, the police arrested four persons who were allegedly trying to bribe Congress MLAs, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar claimed on Sunday.
BJP spokesperson Anil Biswal denied it at Bhubaneswar.
On the other hand, the BJP took its MLAs to Paradip, the port town of Odisha, and housed them in independent candidate Dilip Ray's Hotel Mayfair.
CM Mohan Charan Majhi had gone there to meet the MLAs.
Interestingly, the BJD supremo Patnaik met his party MLAs several times for Rajya Sabha election discussions.
Before election day, the MLAs were asked to have a night halt at Patnaik’s parental bungalow ‘Naveen Nivas’, near the city airport.
The MLAs could be seen in media reports wearing ethnic Khurda lungis.
In this scenario, the election saw intense drama, including allegations of horse trading, vote-buying accusations from the Opposition, and a temporary halt in voting over ballot paper disputes.
According to reports, as many as 11 Opposition MLAs—six from the BJD, two suspended BJD MLAs, and three from Congress—cast their votes in favour of the BJP-backed independent, Dilip Ray.
A minor scuffle between BJD and BJP MLAs was also reported during the process.
The cross-voting highlights internal dissent within Opposition ranks and potential cracks in the temporary BJD-Congress understanding. The BJP, however, has every reason to be happy, as Chief Minister Majhi congratulated the winners.