In a move aimed at preventing possible cross-voting ahead of the March 16 Rajya Sabha elections, eight Congress MLAs from Odisha have been shifted to Bengaluru and lodged at a private resort on the city’s outskirts. The move comes amid concerns that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the eastern state might attempt to poach them.
According to reports, the legislators and their families arrived in Bengaluru on the night of Thursday, March 12. They were taken to a private resort in Bidadi under the supervision of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.
The MLAs staying at the resort are Rajan Ekka, Ashok Das, Appala Kumar Swamy, Mangu Killo, Pavitra Sauntha, Nilamadhav Hikka, Prafulla Pradhan, and Sathyajit Gomongo.
Shivakumar and senior Congress leaders in Karnataka met Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Bhakta Charan Das and the visiting MLAs on Friday evening. However, Shivakumar said he had not brought the legislators to Bengaluru and that they had arrived on their own. “The Odisha PCC president called me and said they were coming to Bengaluru. It must be a party matter. When they said they were coming, I said they could come. They wanted a comfortable place and we arranged it,” he told reporters.
When asked whether the party had tasked him with preventing cross-voting – another “Operation Lotus” – in the Rajya Sabha elections, Shivakumar said he would do whatever the party asked him to do. “This happens in all states, it is nothing new,” he said, adding that the Odisha MLAs had expressed their desire to meet him after the Karnataka Assembly session.
Shivakumar added that the MLAs themselves had told him they preferred to stay in Bengaluru as they felt it was safe. “It is our duty to take care of them. I have been doing this since the days of the Vilasrao Deshmukh government and have handled similar situations many times, including during the Rajya Sabha election of Ahmed Patel,” he said.
In the 147-member Odisha Assembly, the BJP has 79 members, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has 51, the Indian National Congress has 14, and others hold three seats.
Four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha are going to the polls, and five candidates are in the fray. The Congress and BJD have jointly fielded Datteshwar Hota, a urologist and former director of Odisha Medical University. While the BJD is certain to secure one seat and the BJP is expected to win two, neither party has the required 30 first-preference votes to secure the fourth seat.