Sambalpur (Odisha): Union Minister and BJP candidate Dharmendra Pradhan has won by over 1 lakh votes in Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat, according to the latest data by Election Commission of India. The saffron party candidate was contesting against BJD rival Pranab Prakash Das.
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.
The BJP fielded Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan from the seat which is considered as a bastion of the saffron party. Significantly, Pradhan is contesting any election after 15 years. On the Other hand, the ruling Biju Janata Dal has accepted the challenge by fielding Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s close aide and party organisational secretary and sitting Jajpur MLA, Pranab Prakash Das against Pradhan.
2024 Polling: Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat went to the polls in the 6th phase of voting for the Lok Sabha election 2024. According to the Election Commission of India, the Lok Sabha seat recorded a voter turnout of 79.50 percent. The Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat registered the highest turnout followed by Puri (73.81 per cent), Dhenkanal (73.69), Keonjhar (73.30), Cuttack (67.36) and Bhubaneswar (62) as per the Election Commission of India.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Sambalpur seat was won by sitting BJP MP Nitesh Ganga Deb with a rather narrow margin of 9,162 votes against Biju Janata Dal candidate Nalini Kanta Pradhan. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, BJD's Nagendra Kumar Pradhan defeated BJP candidate Suresh Pujari comprehensively by a margin of 30,576 votes.:
