Bhubaneswar: BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Thursday reviewed the result of the Patkura Assembly election, in which BJP was found to have made considerable inroads though the ruling BJD won the seat.
Naveen was not happy with the winning margin of 17,920 votes as he was expecting a bigger margin, party insiders said. Patnaik, insiders said, asked the leaders in-charge of Patkura election how BJP could make inroads in the constituency which is considered a BJD fort.
Of the total 2,44,747 voters of politically sensitive Patkura Assembly constituency, 1,78,007 people had exercised their franchise July 20. In the result declared July 24 Sabitri Agarwalla of BJD had been declared to have trounced Patnaik’s bete nore Bijoy Mohapatra of BJP.
The sources said Patnaik wanted to know how Mohapatra manged to secure 78,097 votes – 55,509 votes more than the 2014 BJP candidate Manas Ranjan Mohanty, who had secured 21,588 votes.
BJD winning margin has gone up by 6,164 votes in Patkura between 2014 and 2019. In 2014 its former MLA Bed Prakash Agarwalla had secured 89,853 votes and in the recent polls his widow Sabitri won 96,017 votes.
Patnaik had himself conducted roadshows and campaigned for the party’s candidate. He had engaged seven ministers, a large number of MLAs and senior leaders including former law-makers for canvassing for the election, which was considered as a prestige battle between the two leaders.
Among others, ministers Arun Sahoo, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Prafulla Mallik along with senior MLAs Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Debi Prasad Mishra, Pradeep Panigrahi, Sashibhusan Behera and Pratap Deb who were in-charge of the Patkura elections attended the meeting.
After the meeting, Deb said that discussions were held regarding the present position of BJD in all the 51 gram panchayats of Patkura Assembly segment.
Meanwhile, speculations are rife that Naveen may induct one MLA from Kendrapara district in his Council of Ministers. At present, the district does not have representation in the new Cabinet.
Commenting on this, Behera said, “I am not in the lobby for any post. It depends on the party supremo, who will take a decision in this regard. I will sincerely discharge the responsibility our party chief will give me.”
