Bhubaneswar: State BJP in-charge Vijaypal Singh Tomar said on Friday that the party is confident of bagging three of the four Rajya Sabha seats that will fall vacant in Odisha in April.With 79 MLAs and support from three Independents, the BJP already has the numbers to comfortably win two seats. The BJD, with 50 MLAs, is poised to secure one. Since each candidate needs the backing of 31 MLAs, no party on its own has the strength to win the 4th seat.“While the Parliamentary Board will decide the candidates, BJP will win at least three seats,” Tomar told media persons. “I am hopeful of the party clinching three seats. We are strategising accordingly,” he added.The terms of BJP’s Mamata Mohanta and Sujeet Kumar and BJD’s Muzibulla (Munna) Khan and Niranjan Bishi end on April 2.In both 2019 and 2024, the BJD supported the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls, enabling Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s election to the Upper House as a BJP nominee, despite the BJD having enough strength to send its own candidate on both occasions. Political observers are watching whether the regional party will repeat the gesture for a third time for another BJP candidate. The key difference now, however, is that the BJD sits in the opposition, unlike earlier when it backed the BJP while in power in the state.Though the Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule, speculation is already rife over potential candidates.Last month, Odisha Congress president Bhakta Charan Das said the party explored a joint strategy with the BJD to secure the 4th seat. Since both parties are in the opposition, Das suggested they could consider backing a common candidate. BJD president and leader of opposition Naveen Patnaik did not indicate his stand yet, though party insiders said the regional outfit is unlikely to align with the Congress.While the BJD may not be averse to a prominent Odisha personality being sent as an independent consensus candidate with BJP, the saffron party may bargain for its support for a BJP candidate.
