Bhubaneswar, March 22 The opposition BJD on Sunday said the party is ready to go to court to ensure that its six MLAs, who have been suspended for allegedly voting in favour of the BJP in the recent Rajya Sabha polls, are disqualified from the Odisha assembly.
Addressing a press conference here, BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said the party was "mentally prepared to carry this battle to the very end".
"If required, the BJD is ready to take the matter to the Supreme Court and ensure that they are disqualified from the House," he said.
Mohanty's comments come a day after the BJD had suspended six of its MLAs for cross-voting during the recent election to four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha.
The suspended legislators are Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Naba Kishor Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol) and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki).
BJD senior vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra said that its political affairs committee took serious note of the six MLAs, who "not only voted against the party decision in the Rajya Sabha elections, but also made public statements against the party leadership".
“According to the BJD constitution, any member who publicly makes a statement against the leadership and opposes a collective decision is as good as self-resigning from the party. The six MLAs are likely to lose their membership in the House because they violated the party constitution," he said.
Mishra said that since the six legislators did not abide by the collective decision of the party, the BJD will move the Speaker with a formal request to disqualify their assembly membership.
“If the suspended MLAs take legal steps, the party is prepared to fight it out,” Mishra said.