BJD retains all seats in Dhenkanal

DHENKANAL: The ruling BJD has retained all four Assembly seats in the recently-concluded General Elections in the district. Though BJP gave a close fight in Parjang, it failed to secure a victory.
In Dhenkanal Assembly seat, BJD candidate Sudhir Kumar Samal secured 89,536 votes while his opponent BJP nominee Krushna Chandra Patra got 68,896 votes. Earlier, Patra was defeated from the seat three times.

BJD candidate Prafulla Mallik received 81,695 votes and was re-elected by defeating his BJP rival Satrughan Jena, who got 65,186 votes from Kamakshyanagar seat.Both Patra and Jena were picked by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan despite resentment in the district unit of the saffron party.
Similarly, sitting BJD MLA Simarani Nayak was reelected from Hindol. He bagged 93,980 votes. Her rival BJP candidate Ashok Kumar Nayak got 75,075 votes.

In Parjang, BJD nominee Nrushing Sahoo, though faced a close fight from BJP candidate  Bibhuti Bhusan Pradhan, won the seat by securing 78,747 votes. While Pradhan got 78,007 votes, Sahoo defeated him by only 740 votes.

As many as 11,33,213 voters exercised their franchise in Dhenkanal Lok Sabha seat on April 23. While BJD candidate Mahesh Sahoo won the Lok Sabha seat securing 5,22,884 votes, his rival BJP nominee Rudra Narayan Pany got 4,87,472 votes. Sahoo bagged maximum votes from Hindol and Talcher Assembly seats.

Bibhuti Bhusan Pradhan, who is also the district BJP president, said, “We respect people’s mandate.”
Congress candidate Nabin Nanda said he won’t contest elections in future. But he said he will continue to fight for people’s interests.  Expressing gratitude to voters, Lok Sabha winning candidate Mahesh Sahoo said he will focus on developmental works in the constituency.