The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) retained the Jharsuguda Assembly constituency seat after its candidate Dipali Das trounced the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Tankadhar Tripathy by a huge margin of 48,619 votes. The results of the Jharsuguda bypoll were announced on Saturday.

Dipali Das, daughter of former Odisha Health Minister Naba Das, secured a total of 1,07,003 votes while BJP’s Tankadhar Tripathy managed to poll 58,384 votes in his favour. Congress candidate Tarun Pandey got 4473 votes.

Jharsuguda Bypoll Counting Live Updates

The Jharsuguda bypoll was necessitated following the murder of Naba Das by a police personnel in January 2023. BJD’s Dipali Das continued to maintain a steady lead since Round 1 of the counting.

By the end of Round 11, she had already gained a lead of 28, 170 votes. By end of the 13th round, Dipali extended the lead by 34295 votes and the lead breached the 40,000 mark by the end of round 15.

“It is due to the love and blessings of the people that I have been able to win the election with a huge margin. I will meet CM Naveen Patnaik soon. I will fulfill the commitment made to the people. I will also fulfill the dreams of my late father Naba Das,” said Dipali Das.

According to Dipali, she was hopeful of wining the Jharsuguda by-election by a record margin.

Senior BJD leader, Prasanna Acharya said, “The results were expected as the voters had already decided to bless the BJD candidate Dipali Das. The credit goes to the voters of Jharsuguda for their matured decision and the efforts of our workers.”

Acharya said that the party supremo Naveen Patnaik is ‘no doubt a popular leader and everybody works as per his instruction and direction’. This seems to the mantra of BJD’s success here, he said.