In the third phase of the rural polls in the eight Zilla Parishad (ZP) zones in Kujang and Tirtol blocks in Jagatsinghpur district, the BJP opened its account by winning two ZP seats in Kujang block, which is a major setback to Minister Damador Rout.
The Congress won in one seat in Tirtol block and the BJD in five seats in both the blocks. Though the results are yet to be declared officially, the trend available after completion of the elections indicated that the BJP candidates bagged the ZP zones 3 and 4 in Kujang block.
Saffron party candidate Sushree Priyadarshani was well ahead of BJD aspirant Kailash Chandra Behera and another party candidate Rashmi Ranjan Choudhury polled more votes than BJD candidate Sudhal Swain in Kujang block.
BJD aspirants Namita Parida in ZP zone 1 and Manini Behera in ZP zone 2 were victorious.
In Tirtol block’s four ZP seats where polling had been held on Monday, Congress candidate Ajaya Kumar Sahoo captured ZP zone 2 and BJD candidates Sanatan Dalai, lipali Rout and Priyadarshani Biswal of ZP zones 1, 3 and 4, respectively, came out winners.
The third phase election results were seen as a severe jolt to Minister Rout because most of the areas that went to the polls come under his constituency. Tirtol BJD MlA Rajashree Mallick too suffered a setback when one of her block’s ZP Zone was captured by the Congress.
The BJP camp was upbeat for capturing two ZP zones in Rout’s bastion.