Bhubaneswar, March 21 -- The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Saturday suspended six of its Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), who voted for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-backed Independent candidate Dilip Ray in the Rajya Sabha polls, with immediate effect and indicated it would approach the Speaker for their disqualification, while also challenging alleged procedural lapses before the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The suspended MLAs are Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Naba Kishore Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol) and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki).

They voted in favour of Ray instead of the BJD-Congress joint nominee Datteswar Hota in the Rajya Sabha poll. Though bot...