The Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee on Tuesday suspended Lanjigarh MLA Shivaji Majhi from the primary membership of the party for allegedly taking bribe during last year’s Rajya Sabha elections.
Mr Majhi was suspended barely within a week of release of an audio tape by a private television news channel which claimed that two BJD ministers had negotiated with the Congress MLA to refrain from voting in the RS polls to favour the third candidate of the ruling party.
Mr Majhi was among the three MLAs, two others being the Congress’ Gregory Minz and Bhimsen Choudhury of the BJP, who did not vote in the RS polls.
As the three Opposition MLAs abstained from voting, it paved the way for the BJD’s third candidate Baishnab Parida to win the polls. On June last year, the Rajya Sabha election was held for three seats. The ruling BJD had fielded three candidates for the elections but was falling short of eight votes for a clean sweep. The Congress and BJP had lent their support to Independent candidate Tara Ranjan Patnaik, a well-known entrepreneur.
However, the BJD managed to win all the three seats.