Election to Rajya Sabha seat of AU Singhdeo on June 19

The Election Commission on Tuesday announced that by-election to eight of nine Rajya Sabha seats, including one in Odisha, which fell vacant recently will be held on June 19.

AU Singhdeo was elected to Rajya Sabha on a BJD ticket on February 7. It automatically stood cancelled as he did not resign from the assembly within 14 days of official notification of results on April 2.

Singhdeo did not take Rajya Sabha oath after BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced that he would re-contest from Balangir assembly seat. Congress leader Narasingh Mishra defeated him in the assembly fight.

Chief Minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik had already announced the name of Ollywood star Anubhav Mohanty as the party’s candidate for the vacancy arising out of Singhdeo’s resignation.

Two more Rajya Sabha seats that have fallen vacant in Odisha are those of Sashibhusan Behera and Rabi Narayan Mohapatra. They had contested the Assembly polls and won. However, election to these vacancies have not been announced.

While the notification for the election would be issued on June 2, the last date to file nominations is June 9, the release added. After scrutiny of nominations next day, candidates can withdraw their nominations by June 12.

As BJD has a brute majority in the state assembly with 117 of 147 MLAs, any candidate of the regional party will have an easy sail in the RS race.