Bhubaneswar, May 30: With property worth Rs 29.84 crore, Biju Janata Dal (BJD)'s Rajya Sabha nominee N. Bhaskar Rao has turned out to be richest among all the Upper House members from the state.
Rao, along with former finance minister Prasanna Acharya and former school and mass education minister Bishnu Charan Das, today submitted their nomination papers. If their papers are found to be correct, all three will stand elected to the Upper House.
Rao, who was deputy chairperson of the state's planning board, hails from southern Odisha and is an industrialist. His wife owns property worth of Rs 2.69 crore. His wife manages an agency that deals with trading of agricultural produce. The family owns a number of farms besides property at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
The family runs three companies, including one that deals with power production, collection and distribution of electricity. It also has interests in mining and real estate business. Rao has three cars - Toyota Fortuner, Ford Figo and Toyota Innova.
Three seats will fall vacant on July 1 this year when the tenure of Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, Baishnab Charan Parida and Bhupinder Singh end. All the three were elected on the ticket of BJD.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik was present during the filing of nomination papers today at the state assembly. The Opposition has not fielded any candidate because they do not have the required numbers in the Assembly to win even a single seat.
The BJD has 117 members, the Congress 16 and the BJP 10. In the 147-member Assembly, one would need 37 first preference votes to win a seat. Rao, Acharya and Das are all set to be elected unopposed.
The affidavit of Acharya, who had lost the last Assembly elections, revealed that he has property, both movable and immovable, worth Rs 4.47 crore. His wife has property worth Rs 80.71 lakhs. Acharya, an LLB, is an agriculturist by profession and his wife Charusila has an interest in business.
Bishnu Charan Das, a prominent Dalit face of the BJD, has property worth Rs 1.09 crore. He has Rs 25,000 cash in hand and his wife has Rs 5,000 cash.
Das also owns an Ambassador, a Mahindra Scorpio and a Toyota Qualis. He also has a Rajdoot motorcycle in his name. His wife has property worth Rs 4 lakh.
Pucca houses
The state government on Monday decided to provide pucca houses to the state's vulnerable tribal families. It has also decided to provide them with pension schemes and insurance policies.
