Jharsuguda: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has retained the Jharsuguda assembly constituency by-election as counting of votes ended on Saturday. The Election Commission of India is yet to officially declare the results.
BJD candidate Dipali Das is seen leading by a whooping margin of 48,721 votes by securing a total of 1,07,198 votes while BJP and Congress trailed behind with 58,477 and 4,496 votes respectively. Dipali has maintained a clear lead since the beginning of the counting.
The counting process was held at the Jharsuguda Engineering School amid a tight three-tier security cover. The process started with counting of the postal ballots followed by the EVM and finally the VVPATs of the five booths. Jharsuguda District Collector Aboli Sunil Naravane and Superintendent of Police Parmar Smit Parshottamdas said arrangements have been made for a smooth counting process and to ensure law and order.
The by-poll for the Jharsuguda assembly constituency was held on May 10 by recording a voter turn-out of 79.21 percent of the 2.21 lakh voters. The Jharsuguda assembly fell vacant after the alleged assassination of Odisha health minister Naba Kishore Das on January 29. The deceased minister's daughter Dipali was fielded from this seat.
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Total of nine candidates are in the fray but the contest has been mainly between three, namely BJD's Dipali, Tankadhar Tripathi of BJP and Tarun Pandey of Congress. BJD has managed 60.93 percent of votes followed by the BJP with 33.24 percent while Congress got only 2.56 percent votes.
The BJD enjoys majority in the 147-member Odisha Assembly by holding 113 seats. The opposition BJP has 22 MLAs, Congress has 9 MLAs and the CPI-M one legislator while there is one independent member. As Dipali's victory became evident, BJD workers raised slogans and celebrated on the streets.
