In January 1949 during the debate on Article 148 in the Constituent Assembly, pertaining to the formation of two Houses for the states, one member from Orissa province Lakshmi Narayan Sahu moved an amendment to have an Upper House in the province. Biswanath Das, another member from the same province and who later became the chief minister of Orissa (1971-72) called the Upper House ‘an expensive ornament’ and ‘an appendage which is better be thrown out’ while arguing against the amendment. The amendment was rejected.
Seventy years later the present Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik has adorned an 'expensive ornament', the Legislative Council or the Vidhan Parishad, while the state is facing a heavy loan burden of around Rs 92,000 crore.
The Odisha Assembly passed the resolution by 104 votes to set up the Legislative Council on 6 September 2018.
The proposed legislative council will have 49 members. According Article 171(1) of the Constitution, the legislative council of a state cannot have more than one third members of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly. Odisha has total 147 members in the Legislative Assembly.