Bhubaneswar, June 5 -- Former BJD Rajya Sabha member Debashish Samantaray, who recently resigned from the Upper House and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Friday filed his nomination papers as the BJP candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha by-election in Odisha.
Samantaray submitted his nomination before the Returning Officer at the Odisha Legislative Assembly in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, Deputy Chief Minister K.V. Singh Deo, Odisha BJP president Manmohan Samal, several ministers and senior party leaders.
He is the third former Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Rajya Sabha member, after Sujeet Kumar and Mamata Mohanta, to quit the party and join the BJP. Both Kumar and Mohanta were subsequently re-elected to the Ra...