Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday filed his nomination papers as a BJP candidate for the third Rajya Sabha seat from Odisha.

Accompanied by Odisha BJP president Manmohan Samal and 13 party MLAs, Vaishnaw submitted his papers to Rajya Sabha Election Returning Officer Abanikanta Patnaik in the Odisha Assembly premises. He submitted two sets of paper, an official said.

Immediately after nomination, Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, said: "I thank my party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving me another chance to serve the state of Odisha from Rajya Sabha.

"I pray before Lord Jagannath that he gives me more energy and motivation to serve Odisha even better. I will work uninterruptedly like the squirrel of Lord Ram and will not cease to work until Odisha becomes a developed state as envisioned by PM Modi".

Though the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal on Wednesday announced its unconditional support to Vaishnaw's candidature, none from the regional party was present when the Railway minister filed his nomination papers. However, when Vaishnaw had filed his papers for the 2019 Rajya Sabha by-poll, BJD leaders Sasmit Patra and Amar Patnaik were present.

Two BJD candidates Debashish Samantaray and Subhasish Khuntia have already filed their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls.

Considering the strength of the BJD in the Odisha Legislative Assembly, the victory of its three candidates had been certain. However, Naveen Patnaik's party preferred to field two candidates and left one seat for BJP's Vaishnaw.

The tenure of Vaishnaw, Amar Patnaik and Prashant Nanda as Rajya Sabha members from Odisha will end in April this year.

According to the notification issued by the Assembly secretariat, the polling for the Rajya Sabha elections will be held on February 27 between 9 am and 4 pm. The counting of votes will be held on the very day at 5 pm.

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