Odisha will elect four Rajya Sabha members on Monday, with five candidates in the fray.

Of the 147 MLAs in the Odisha Assembly, 82 are first-timers who have never participated in a Rajya Sabha election. To minimise errors, parties have conducted training sessions.

All eyes are on MLAs who may abstain or defy the party whip during polling. Parties are also wary of ballots being declared invalid if legislators fail to follow the prescribed voting procedure. Political observers say some MLAs may abstain instead of casting a vote that could invite allegations of horse-trading, while others may deliberately invalidate their ballots by not following the procedure.

The voting process will be under close scrutiny as Rajya Sabha polling is no longer discreet. MLAs must show their ballots to authorised party agents.

Amid allegations of horse-trading by BJD president Naveen Patnaik against the BJP, several MLAs are under the scanner. Two BJD legislators — Chakramani Kanhar and Naba Kishore Mallick — have remained incommunicado for the past three days and skipped the mandatory training programme at Naveen Niwas.

Two suspended BJD MLAs, Sanatan Mahakud and Arvind Mohapatra, have been directed by party chief whip Pramila Mallik to strictly follow the party whip and vote for the party’s authorised candidate in the Rajya Sabha election.

They have been warned that voting against the whip or abstaining without permission could attract disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution despite their suspension.

Congress alleged attempts at horse-trading, claiming nearly ₹5 crore was offered to its MLAs. Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka said eight Congress MLAs are currently in Bengaluru.

Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar, under whose supervision they are staying, alleged that BJP leaders tried to negotiate with them by offering a blank cheque. Police detained four persons in this connection.

While the BJP and BJD are confident of winning two and one seats respectively, the fourth seat remains open as no party has the required first-preference votes. The contest is mainly between BJP-backed Dilip Ray and BJD-Congress-CPIM supported Dr Datteswar Hota.

The BJP has moved all its MLAs to Paradip and chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi has been camping there for the last two days.