Kendrapara (Odisha):BJP candidate Baijayant Jay Panda has won by over 60,000 votes in Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat, according to the latest data by Election Commission of India. The saffron party candidate was contesting against Congress candidate Anshuman Mohanty.
The BJP won 24 Assembly seats in Odisha on Tuesday and was leading in 56 other constituencies, according to the Election Commission of India. The Biju Janata Dal won 18 seats and was leading in 31 constituencies out of the 147 Assembly seats, it said. Counting was underway in 70 centres across the state. Around 18-19 rounds of counting will be held for the seats.
Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat of Odisha comprises five assembly segments and has emerged as a BJD bastion since the first Lok Sabha election of 1952. However, sitting BJD MP Anubhav Mohanty quitting the party to join the BJP in April this year has made the contest intriguing.
The Kendrapara Lok Sabha battle is all about Biju's legacy Vs BJP's Baijayant Panda's political stature. The constituency was in national focus because of the candidature of BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda contesting again from the same seat after defeat in 2019. This time, Panda was pitted against Anshuman Mohanty, a former congress MLA from Rajanagar and son of former minister Nalini Kanta Mohanty, a close aide of late Biju Patnaik(father of CM Naveen Pattnaik).
2024 Polling:Voting for the Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat took place in the seventh and last phase of Lok Sabha election 2024 on June 1. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Anubhav Mohanty emerged victorious on the seat by defeating BJP candidate Baijayant Panda by over 1,81000 votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Baijayant Panda, who contested on the BJD ticket, won by a massive margin of over two lakh votes against his nearest rival, Dharanidhar Nayak of the Congress.
