Bhubaneswar/Kendrapara: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) claimed the Patkura Assembly constituency seat in Kendrapara district by defeating Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) by a huge margin of over 17,920 votes. The official confirmation regarding the same, however, is still awaited.
After 19 rounds of counting, BJD’s Sabitri Agarwalla, widow of late BJD MLA Bed Prakash Agarwalla, bagged 96,017 votes while Bijoy Mohapatra of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a distant second with 78,097 votes, said sources. With this victory, BJD took the tally in Odisha Assembly to 113.
It was a loss of face for Congress as its candidate Jayanta Mohanty could only manage to poll only 2,104 votes.
BJD took an early lead in the counting of votes for election to the Assembly constituency and maintained the healthy lead right through the counting.
A total of 19 rounds of counting was done for 309 polling booths. Around 72.69 per cent of the total 2,44,747 voters had exercised their franchise in the polling for the Patkura Assembly seat, which was held on July 20 after being postponed twice in the past few months.
The poll to the seat was earlier scheduled to be held in the fourth phase of recently concluded general elections on April 29. However, it was postponed following the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agarwalla on April 20. Later, the Election Commission postponed the election in view of cyclone Fani that hit the state on May 3.
After his party’s win, Chief Minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik thanked people of the State and said, “I would like to express my deep gratitude to the people of Patkura for electing BJD candidate in this election. We will continue to work hard for Patkura's development & welfare.”
“I will give credit of my success to CM Naveen Patnaik for reposing faith in me. I will also thank people of my constituency for electing me as their leader,” said BJD’s winning candidate Sabitri Agarwalla.
However, BJP candidate Bijoy Mohapatra who had to once again taste defeat in the election, expressed his shock at the result.
I am surprised with Patkura election results, though I respect people’s mandate. I can comment further only after reviewing the result, said Bijoy.
Senior BJP leader Jayanarayan Mishra said BJD’s win in the Assembly seat is not surprising because of the way they used their money and power.
Congress which showed a dismal performance during the election has also alleged that the BJD has used money and machinery power to win the election.
Congress leader Tara Bahinipati took a jibe at BJD over the election result and said, “BJD was claiming to win the seat by 30,000-35,000 votes after paying Rs 5000 per voter. But the margin has come down to only 17,000.
Congress candidate, Jayant Mohanty said, “I accept the people's mandate & I am responsible for my performance.”
However, ruling party MLA Arun Sahoo expressed his happiness over the result and said that it the win lead was much better than the last election. “This time people have clearly expressed their mandate by voting for the BJD due to which our win lead increased by three times during this election,” said Sahoo.