Bhubaneswar: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) welcomed the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) decision to abstain from the upcoming Vice-Presidential election, saying that such a move amounts to indirect support for its candidate, C.P. Radhakrishnan.
“Choosing to abstain from voting is to extend indirect support. By doing so, the BJD and Naveen Babu are indirectly supporting us,” Union Minister Jual Oram said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, senior BJD leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sasmit Patra announced that the party had decided to abstain from the Vice-Presidential election scheduled for September 9. He said the decision followed consultations by party president Naveen Patnaik with senior leaders, the Political Affairs Committee, and MPs.
“The BJD remains equidistant from both the NDA and the INDIA Bloc. We are focused on the development and welfare of Odisha and its people,” Patra told reporters in New Delhi.
The regional party, which currently has seven members in the Rajya Sabha and none in the Lok Sabha, has a mixed record in past Vice-Presidential elections. In 2012, it abstained from voting, supporting neither BJP nominee Jaswant Singh nor Congress candidate Hamid Ansari. In 2017, it backed Congress-led UPA nominee Gopal Krishna Gandhi, while in 2022 it voted in favour of NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar.
This time, the NDA has fielded veteran BJP leader and Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan, while the INDIA bloc has nominated former Supreme Court judge Justice (Retd.) B. Sudershan Reddy.
