Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has once again preferred to go beyond BJD leaders to pick candidates for two of the three Rajya Sabha seats that go to polls on March 23.

Of the three BJD candidates - Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Achyuta Samanta and Prashant Nanda - one is a local media baron, the second is KIIT founder who also runs a TV channel and only the third is a veteran in politics.

Nanda, who had been an MLA and a minister in the BJP-BJD coalition government in 2000, had joined the BJD from the NCP.

Popular as an Odia film director, Nanda had started his political career with the BJP. His disenchantment with the rightist party had led him to switch over to Sharad Pawar's NCP and two years ago he joined the BJD. He is now the spokesperson for the BJD.

As BJD spokesperson, Nanda had been enjoying the attention of Naveen for successfully articulating party's policies and programmes. He was also in charge of electoral campaign in one of the blocks during the recently concluded Bijepur Assembly bypoll. By elevating him to the Rajya Sabha, the BJD would seek to counter the star power of BJP in the general elections.

Patnaik, who runs a state-level political outfit Ama Odisha, was a Congress MP between 1996 and 1998. He had also contested against Biju Patnaik as the BJP nominee from the Bhubaneswar Assembly constituency in 1995. Patnaik, who runs a TV channel and edits a newspaper, is associated with several organisations including the Nav Nirman Krushak Sangathan, which is spearheading an agitation for farmers' pension.

Asked about the future of Ama Odisha, Patnaik said: "In a way Ama Odisha has merged with the BJD."

He, however, said that the movements he was involved with would continue.

Samanta had been maintaining a respectable distance from politics in the past. However, he said: "I will carry on with the social service that I am doing. By joining politics, I will only be strengthening it."

He praised Naveen for his honesty and simple way of living. Nanda said he would carry out any job entrusted to him by the party leadership.

After entering the Rajya Sabha, the trio is expected to pick up from where their predecessors A.U. Singh Deo, Dillip Tirkey and A.V. Swamy had left.