As claimed by the BJD earlier, its candidate Rita Sahu created history in the State politics by making a landslide victory in the Bijepur Assembly by-election by a margin of 97,994 votes.
While there were five candidates in the by-poll, Sahu polled 1, 35, 949 votes, BJP nominee Sanat Gadtia bagged 37, 955 and Congress candidate Dilip Panda only 5,871 votes.
Independent candidates Ashok Kumar Mittal polled 1,219 votes and Brundaban Purohit 1,053. The number of NOTA (none of the above) votes was 1,982 votes.
The previous Assembly seat winning margin record had been created by BJP leader Biswabhusan Harichandan by winning the Bhubaneswar Central Assembly seat by a margin of 94,555 votes in year 2000.
BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik congratulated Rita Sahu and people of Bijepur for the ruling party’s spectacular feat.
Notably, Patnaik had own the Bijepur seat in the general elections held in April this year by a margin of around 57,000 votes. The by-poll was necessitated as Patnaik resigned from Bijepur and retained his old Hinjili seat in Ganjam district, from where he had contested.
Rita secured about 40,000 more votes than Patnaik in a gap of just six months. Many take it as an indication of increase in the popularity of the Patnaik-headed 5th BJD Government.
In the 2019 general elections, BJD candidate Soumya Ranjan Patnaik had won with the highest margin of 81,430 votes from the Khandapada Assembly seat. His record has been overtaken by Rita Sahu.
Notably, the vote percentage of the State’s major opposition party BJP drastically came down in Bijepur despite campaigning by Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Sarangi, Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi along with the entire saffron brigade.
Gadtia managed to get just 37, 955 votes this time while he had polled 53, 482 in the April general elections.
Congress candidate Panda lost his security deposit. In the 2018 by-poll in Bijepur, Congress nominee Pranay Sahu had polled about 10,000 votes and the number rose to about 15,000 in the 2019 general elections. The vote count this time came down to 5,871 votes.