Santosh Amat frontrunner among BJD RS ticket aspirants
By Prasanta Kumar Mishra & A K Sahoo
Bhubaneswar, May 18: Santosh Kumar Amat who had quit IRS job in 2017 and joined the Odisha’s ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is most likely to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha scheduled to be held next month.
Amat, a firebrand well-educated leader of western Odisha, is the blue-eyed boy of BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Soon after his induction into the BJD, he was made the first chairman of the Special Development Council and also panelist in order to counter BJP MP Jual Oram in Sundergarh.
A clean personality as he is, Amat has wide acceptability across all sections of society.
To counter that in 2024 general elections, there are whispers in power corridors that Santosh Amat is likely to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
Notably, elections to three seats which have fallen vacant following completion of the tenure of BJD members — N Bhaskar Rao, Prasanna Acharya and Sasmit Patra — will be held on June 10.
The fourth seat that fell vacant after the resignation of BJD member Subhash Chandra Singh, who has been elected as mayor of Cuttack Municipal Corporation, will go to polls on June 13.
