Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s victory margin in the just-concluded Assembly elections in the State is the fourth highest.He won from his home turf Hinjili in Ganjam district defeating Sibaram Patra of the Congress by 76,586 votes.
It was Higher Education Minister Badri Narayan Patra who retained his Ghasipura seat by a whopping margin of 88,602 votes, the highest in the State.The second highest score of margin of 85,786 votes was achieved by the BJD’s debut candidate Pranab Balabantray against Srinath Mishra of the Congress in the Dharmasala constituency.And the third highest margin of 84,613 votes was pulled by Pranab Ptakash Das of the BJD, who retained his Jajpur seat defeating his Congress rival Santosh Kumar Nanda.
Chief Minister Patnaik’s winning margin has been on a constant increase ever since he has been contesting from Hinjili. In the 2000 polls, the margin was 26,417 votes, which went up to 42,642 in 2004 and 61,273 in 2009.