In a petition submitted to Speaker Chintamani Dyansamantra on Wednesday, the MLAs said that Patnaik has been elected as the leader of the BJD Legislature Party at its emergent meeting held on November 17.

Those who signed the petition include, Ramakrushna Patnaik, Anand Acharya, Balabhadra Majhi, A U Singhdeo, Jadav Majhi, Kamala Das, Ramchandra Sethi, Bikram Keshari Arukh, Raghunath Hembrum, Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik, Sachidananda Dalal and Kunduru Kushal.

Announcing this at a press conference here Ramakrushna Patnaik demanded that the Speaker should revise his decision to recognise Prafulla Samal as the leader of opposition as he does not have majority support in the 22 member BJD Legislature Party. Saying that the approval of Samal was in violation to the Constitution, Patnaik maintained that the Speaker should have not takeninto account the opinion of five expelled MLAs.

The emergent meeting held at Navin Nivas soon after the state executive meeting, endorsed the expulsion of five MLAs. The meeting condemned the manner in which signature campaign was launched against Ramakrushna Patnaik and described it as illegal. The meeting resolved that the move of the rebel MLAs in ousting Ramakrushna Patnaik was illegal. Patnaik said that all the 22 MLAs were notified for the emergent meeting.

The rebels, however, have alleged that there was no such meeting. Rebel leader Bijay Mahapatra said that he was not aware of any such meeting. Rebel MLA Amar Prasad Satpathy said that since Sachidananda Dalal no longer continued as the secretary of the BJDLP he was not empowered to convene a meeting. Dalal, in fact, was acting secretary, he noted.

Satpathy said that as the leader of the opposition Prafulla Samal has appointed Bisnu Das as the secretary of the BJDLP, the meeting of the rival camp does not have any locus standi.