Vikash Sharma

The stakes were high for the Padampur seat and eventually, it was BJD that registered a thumping victory in the crucial byelection battle. BJD candidate Barsha Singh Bariha defeated BJP’s Pradip Purohit with a margin of over 42,000 votes.

By the end of the counting of votes after round 23, Barsha secured 1,20, 807 votes. BJP’s Pradip Purohit secured 78,128 votes in his favour. Congress candidate Satya Bhusan Sahu won a total of 3594 votes in the crucial Padampur byelection, the results were announced on Thursday. An official announcement is likely to made soon as the matching of VVPAT is underway.

A total of 10 candidates were contesting the Padampur byelection battle. The counting of votes had started at around 8 am and BJD candidate Barsha managed to secure a healthy lead in most of the rounds.

Barsha said, “I thank people of Padampur for showering all blessings. I am aware of the problems and will try to resolve basic issues like roads, drinking water and farmers’ issue.”

According to Barsha, “It is also an emotional day for me and family. I assure people that I will serve the people like my father did.”

BJP candidate Pradip Purohit said, “The way results and trends were beyond our expectation as we had hoped to win the bypoll by a margin of 5,000 votes. We will certainly review booth-wise data and other issues.”

BJD leader Sushant Singh said, “Our strategy for Dhamnagar, be it a selection of candidate or others, was wrong and we were also overconfident. But in Padampur, we corrected it and focused on resolving the issues of people. CM Naveen also assured lot of welfare schemes and within few years all the demands will be fulfilled.”

Earlier, BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi had said that the party will certainly introspect and revise the strategy. “According to Sarangi, all leaders in the party had worked hard and there could be some problems in planning. The party will introspect together and if there is some lacuna in planning, there is always a chance of defeat, she said adding that hard work and planning are key to win elections,” said Sarangi.

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