Bhubaneswar: Politicians and their families have been shown the door in the simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and assembly in Odisha, whose results were declared Tuesday.
Powerful BJD leader Pranab Prakash Das and his mother, minister Sudam Marndi and his wife, and children of two former Congress chief ministers were defeated during the elections.
BJD organisational secretary Pranab was defeated from the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan by a margin of 1,19,836 votes.
Pranab’s mother Sandyarani also lost to her nearest rival candidate Akash Das Nayak of the BJP by a margin of 5,646 votes from the Korai assembly seat.
Similarly, Sudam Marndi, who was a minister in Naveen Patnaik’s cabinet, was defeated from the Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seat. BJP candidate Naba Charan Majhi won the Mayurbhanj seat by a margin of 2,19,334 votes.
In place of Sudam Marndi, the BJD had nominated his wife Ranjita Marndi from the Bangriposi assembly seat. Marndi lost the seat to BJP candidate Sanjali Murmu.
Former chief minister late J B Patnaik’s son, Pruthvi Ballav Patnaik contested from the Begunia assembly seat on a Congress ticket.
However, he lost the seat and remained in third position, securing only 18,144 votes, 72,820 less than the votes of the winning BJD candidate.
The BJP remained in second position in the Begunia MLA seat, which was represented once by Pruthvi’s father in 1995 (by-poll) and 2004.
Similarly, former chief minister late Hemananda Biswal’s daughter Amita, who contested from Jharsuguda assembly seat on a Congress ticket, faced a humiliating defeat.
While BJP’s Tankadhar Tripathy won the seat, BJD’s Dipali Das remained in second position and Amita got only 5,775 votes.
Though senior Congress leader and former union minister Bhakta Charan Das lost the assembly seat from Narla, his son Sagar Das managed to win the Bhawanipatna assembly segment.
Moreover, former Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik and his younger brother Soumya Ranjan Patnaik (independent) were defeated by the Bhandaripokhari and Ghasipura assembly constituencies in this election. Soumya is also the son-in-law of former CM JB Patnaik.
PTI
