Nomination papers of 3 BJD candidates found valid

The nomination papers of all the three ruling BJD candidates were today found valid while that of the lone Independent candidate was rejected during scrutiny for the coming Rajya Sabha elections from Odisha, Returning Officer Rajesh Prabhakar Patil said.
The three Biju Janata Dal candidates - Prashant Nanda, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and Achyuta Samanta - had filed their nomination on March 9.
The nomination papers filed by independent candidate Subash Mohapatra was rejected as he could not arrange the required number of proposers, the returning officer said.
The BJD candidates are certain to get elected to the Upper House of the Parliament as it has 118 MLAs out of the total 147 Assembly seats in the state.

The opposition Congress and BJP which have 15 MLAs and 10 MLAs respectively, have not fielded any candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Polling will be held between 9 am and 4 pm on March 23, while votes will be counted at 5 pm the same day.