Odisha’s ruling Biju Janata Dal won the Patkura Assembly constituency by defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party when votes for the polls held on July 20 were counted on Wednesday. The Congress finished a distant third.
BJD’s nominee Sabitri Agarwalla defeated BJP’s Bijoy Mohapatra by 17,920 votes. While Ms. Agarwalla bagged 96,017 votes, Mr. Mohapatra got 78,097 votes and Jayanta Mohanty of the Congress bagged only 2,104 votes by the end of last round of counting of votes polled in the EVMs. The results will be formally announced by the Election Commission of India later in the day.
While the BJD succeeded in maintaining its supremacy in the region, Mr. Mohapatra lost yet another battle to enter the State Assembly for another term.
Mr. Mohapatra, who won from Patkura four times – 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1995, was a member of Biju Patnaik’s Council of Ministers in his last term.
Although he was a founder member of the BJD, Mr. Mohapatra failed to contest the 2000 polls when the party cancelled his ticket at the last minute. He has lost all elections in subsequent years.
In 2001, Mr. Mohapatra had formed the Odisha Gana Parishad, a regional party political party which he later merged with the Nationalist Congress Party. He joined the BJP when the NCP turned an ally of the BJD before 2009 polls.
Often referred as Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik’s bête noire, Mr. Mohapatra had quit the BJP in November last year, but returned to the party again before this year’s general election and entered the fray from Patkura.
Polling in Patkura, which was initially scheduled to be held on April 29 as part of the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, was first adjourned due to the death of the Biju Janata Dal nominee – Ms. Agarwalla’s husband Bed Prakash Agarwalla.
The Election Commission of India had then fixed May 19 as the next date of polling, but it was postponed again due to Cyclone Fani that hit the State’s coast on May 3.
The seat witnessed high-voltage campaigning with senior leaders from the three major parties holding meetings to woo the voters. Mr. Patnaik had also campaigned for Ms. Agarwalla for a day apart from a majority of his Ministers and party MLAs.