BHUBANESWAR: Along expected lines, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) retained the Jharsuguda Assembly seat with a big margin of 48,721 votes by trouncing its nearest rival the BJP.
BJD nominee Deepali Das, daughter of slain former minister Naba Kishore Das, secured 1,07,198 votes as against 58,477 votes cornered by BJP candidate Tankadhar Tripathy. Congress candidate Tarun Pandey lost the deposit as he could manage to bag only 4496 votes.
The BJD candidate was leading from the first round and continued her dominance till the final round of the counting making it amply clear that the BJD is still the favourite among the voters.
While the BJD secured 60.93 per cent votes, BJP polled 33.24 per cent votes. The vote share of Congress dropped to 2.56 per cent.
By securing 8,578 more votes than what her late father, a popular leader and a three-time MLA, had polled in the 2019 elections, Deepali proved the opposition’s calculation of making the deteriorating law and order situation a major poll plank wrong.
Though Tankadhar got 5,556 more votes than that of the BJP’s nominee in the last assembly elections, he failed to stop the BJD juggernaut. Congress lost over 14,000 votes. Interestingly, 2073 votes went in favour of NOTA.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik spoke to Deepali over the phone and congratulated her for the resounding victory.
In response to her victory, Deepali said that this was possible due to the love of the voters to her father and the blessings of her father and the Chief Minister.
Dubbing the Chief Minister as a father figure, Deepali said she will continue all the developmental work her father had initiated.
BJP candidate Tankadhar said there was a fight between ‘parishram‘ (hard work) and ‘paisa‘ (money) in the by-poll and the former was defeated by the latter.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan conceded defeat in the Jharsuguda by-election and congratulated Deepali on her victory. He, however, thanked the voters for supporting the BJP and pushing the party’s vote share up.
The by-election was necessitated following the sensational murder of the former Heath Minister Naba Kishore Das by an ASI of police on duty.
