In a joint statement here, they said that though their suspension from the party was attributed to indiscipline and anti-party activities, the disciplinary action initiated against them close on the heels of the Rajya Sabha polls gave an impression that they might have indulged in cross-voting.

Alleging that they had become victims of a political conspiracy, the five MLAs said that a probe into the whole matter by the CBI would unmask the truth as well as the conspirators.

The five MLAs are Suryanarayan Patra, Bijoyshree Routray, Kalpataru Das, Pravat Tripathy, and Bishnu Charan Das.

They said that since the election was conducted through secret ballot, no one could ever say with any certainty as to who had cross-voted. Even if the party president Naveen Patnaik clarifies his decision to suspend us, he hassent a wrong message to the people, they said.

Though the BJD-BJP alliance had a combined strength of 37 in the state assembly against a requirement of 36 votes to ensure BJD candidate A U Singh Deo's victory in the election, the latter polled 35 votes and lost by a single vote.

All the BJD and BJP MLAs, 13 of the 14 Janata Dal legislators, six independents, five JMM and JPP members, and 83 ruling Congress MLAs had participated in the polling, the five legislators said.