The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Sunday announced the names of the four candidates — Sulata Deo, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj, Sasmit Patra and Niranjan Bishi — for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

All the party candidates are expected to win as the BJD enjoys a brute majority in the Assembly.

The announcement came on a day the Naveen Patnaik government completed its third year in his fifth term as the chief minister. Odisha has 10 seats in the Upper House of Parliament.

The BJD organisational secretary, Pranab Prakash Das, said in a statement: “Naveen Patnaik, president of the Biju Janata Dal, has nominated Sulata Deo, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj, Dr Sasmit Patra and Niranjan Bishi as BJD candidates for the four vacant posts of member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).”

Naveen has tried to strike a balance by nominating a woman, a tribal leader, a minority community leader and a person from an upper caste for the Upper House. While three of the candidates are new faces, the fourth, Patra, has been renominated by the party. He has been rewarded for his outstanding performance in the Rajya Sabha, sources said.

Patra, who hails from Kandhamal district, earned the goodwill of the chief minister for his oratory and for effectively presenting Odisha’s cause in the Upper House. “I have always been influenced by Naveen’s work. We will work towards the development at the Centre,” said Patra.

In the BJD, Patra is the third leader, after the late Pyari Mohan Mohapatra and Baijayant Panda (now in the BJP), to get a second consecutive term in the Upper House.

Naveen also played a masterstroke by roping in the fiercest critics of his government and the voice of the tribal persons from western Odisha, Bishi, as his party's Rajya Sabha candidate. Bishi has been organising the tribal movement against the government since 2008, causing a lot of difficulties for the government.

He came into the limelight in January 2022 when over 5,000 tribal persons carrying weapons gheraoed the Bolangir district collectorate in western Odisha and paralysed the administration. Since then, the party has been trying to rope him in. A few days ago, he joined the BJD.

“We will take the various development issues of the government to the doorsteps of the people. I will raise issues pertaining to tribals in Parliament,” said Bishi, who is currently holding the post of secretary-general, the Odisha Adivasi Kalyan Mahasangha. Bishi hails from Bolangir district in western Odisha.

Naveen rewarded Mangaraj for his loyalty and utility to the party. Mangaraj, now working as the media adviser to the government, earlier worked as a journalist before taking the plunge into politics.

“I have been in politics since 2002. I would raise issues pertaining to the 4.5 crore people of the state in Delhi,” said Mangaraj who hails from Khurda district in coastal Odisha and had joined the BJD prior to the 2019 general election.

Sulata Deo is the working president of the Biju Janata Dal (Women Wing). Deo, who started her career as a sarpanch, hails from Jajpur district in Coastal Odisha.

Deo came into the limelight for her fierce opposition to the BJP’s national spokesperson Sambit Patra, particularly on the controversial Puri Shree Mandir Heritage Corridor project that aims at infrastructure development and beautification of the 12th century Puri Shree Jagannath Temple.

She has also been effectively opposing and counter-attacking BJP’s Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi on various issues. “I will work to implement Naveen Patnaik’s vision of overall development of the state,” Deo said.

Three Rajya Sabha seats had fallen vacant with the tenure of Prasanna Acharya, N. Bhaskar Rao and Sasmit Patra coming to an end on July 1. The fourth seat has been vacated by BJD leader Subhas Chandra Singh, who quit the Rajya Sabha to contest as BJD’s mayoral candidate in Cuttack. He won with ease.

The elections to the three Rajya Sabha seats will be held on June 10 and the by-election to the fourth seat on June 13.