Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly, Surama Padhy, has dismissed petitions from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Congress seeking the disqualification of 11 MLAs who were accused of cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha election held in March this year.

The suspended BJD MLAs are Arvind Mohapatra, Chakramani Kanhar, Devi Ranjan Tripathy, Naba Kishor Mallick, Sanatan Mahakud, Subasini Jena, Souvic Biswal and Ramakant Bhoi. The suspended Congress MLAs include Sofia Firdus, Ramesh Chandra Jena and Dasarathi Gamango.

While the BJD had suspended Mr. Mohapatra, the MLA of Patkura, and Mr. Mahakud, who represents the Champua constituency, for anti-party activities well before the Rajya Sabha election, the other six MLAs were suspended for allegedly going against the party whip during the Rajya Sabha elections.

The BJD and the Congress backed renowned urologist Datteswar Hota, who subsequently lost the election, with eight BJD and three Congress MLAs choosing not to vote for him. Both parties had issued whips for their respective MLAs.

Similarly, former Union Minister Dilip Ray was backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and independent candidates. Based on party positions, Mr. Ray did not have enough support to secure a victory in the Rajya Sabha election. However, he won the election due to support from the BJD and Congress camps.

The BJD alleged that the conduct of the MLAs, which was inconsistent with the mandate on which they were elected as BJD candidates, amounted to voluntarily giving up their membership in the party, thereby attracting disqualification under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India.

“The petition is cryptic, vague, unsubstantiated and does not fulfil the statutory requirements to be gone into on merits, even assuming for the sake of argument, but not admitting, that the contents are otherwise worthy of being enquired into. Therefore, the petition suffers from gross infirmity or defects have been presented in sure ignorance of the statutory requirements and do not deserve any consideration,” Ms. Padhy observed in the case of Mr. Mohapatra.

“Without expressing any opinion on the merits of the allegations made against Arvind Mohapatra, the petition is hereby dismissed under Rule 7(2) of the Members of Odisha Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules, 1987,” the Speaker said.

Alleging that Mr. Mohapatra acted under his father’s influence and engaged in anti-party activities, for which he was placed under suspension, the regional party stated, “The MLA dishonoured party directives and ultimately engaged in cross-voting under the guise of conscience voting, in defiance of party discipline, which weakened the party for collateral and corrupt considerations.”

In case of all 11 MLAs, the orders of the Odisha Speaker were almost identical.