Proving all speculations wrong, the ruling BJD won eight of the nine Assembly seats and the lone Parliamentary seat in Cuttack district on Friday.
Four-time MP Bhartruhari Mahtab retained the prestigious Cuttack lok Sabha seat defeating his nearest Congress rival actress Aparajita Mohanty by a margin of over 2.5 lakh votes. He won the seat for the fifth consecutive time and his victory margin this time was better than the last time.In the Assembly elections, the BJD candidates won in eight segments while Congress candidate Prakash Behera defeated his nearest BJD rival Prashant Behera in Salepur by a margin of around 2,000 votes.
In Badamba, Minister Debi Prasad Mishra won the seat defeating laxmi Devi of the Congress by a margin of over 41,000 votes. This is also Mishra’s fourth straight win from the segment. In Banki, the BJD’s Pravat Tripathy retained the seat defeating Rabindra Kumar Mallick of the Congress. While Tripathy polled 85,809 votes, Mallick managed only 42,051.
The all-important Cuttack-Barabati seat also went to the BJD’s Debashis Samantray, who won the polls in an apparent stiff contest against the Congress. While Samantaray polled 57,633 votes, his nearest Congress rival Md Moqim bagged 43,335.The Cuttack-Choudwar seat also went to the BJD when party nominee Pravat Ranjan Biswal retained it by defeating his nearest Congress rival Suresh Chandra Mohapatra by a margin of 41,385 votes.
In Mahanga, Pratap Jena of the BJD defeated his nearest Independent rival Sarada Prasad Pradhan by a margin of over 8,000 votes. The Niali (SC) seat of the district was also retained by former surgery professor Dr PK Mallick, who defeated Congress’ Chhabi Mallick by a margin of nearly 25,000 votes.The BJD also won the Cuttack Sadar Assembly seat as former Salepur MlA Chandra Sarathi Behera defeated BJP candidate Dillip Kumar Mallick by a margin of over 21,000 votes.