<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and ruling BJD's Debashish Samantray and Subhashish Khuntia have been elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Odisha.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">The returning officer announced the names of the elected persons after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended this afternoon.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">BJP candidate and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha with the ruling BJD's support.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">Though the BJD had the required numbers in the Odisha assembly to win all the three Rajya Sabha seats due to fall vacant in April this year, the ruling party had preferred to field only two candidates leaving one berth for BJP's Vaishnaw.</span></p>