Bhubaneswar: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was leading in Odisha’s Jharsuguda Assembly bypoll with 42,395 votes against its nearest rival, the BJP Saturday.
On completion of 16 rounds of counting, BJD candidate Dipali Das secured 94,326 votes while BJP candidate Tankadhar Tripathy got 51,931 votes. Congress nominee Tarun Pandey got only 4,133 votes, officials in the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said.
Of the total nine candidates, the contest is now between the BJD and the BJP candidate.
Counting of votes began at 8 am Saturday amid tight security at Jharsuguda Engineering School.
The counting began with postal ballots and EVM votes were later counted. The votes are being counted on 14 tables and the counting will be done in as many as 18 rounds.
Odisha’s Chief Electoral Officer Nikunja Bihari Dhal said that the counting process is likely to be completed by the afternoon.
The outcome of the by-poll will not have any impact on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government headed by Naveen Patnaik, as the party enjoys a comfortable majority.
Altogether, 79.21 percent of 2.21 lakh voters had exercised their franchise on May 10.
The by-poll was held following the assassination of then Health Minister Naba Kishore Das January 29 allegedly by a police officer.
In the 147-member Odisha Assembly, the BJD has 113 members, and the opposition BJP and Congress have 22 and nine MLAs, respectively. The CPI(M) has one member and there is one Independent legislator.
PNN & Agencies
