Dipali Das of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) defeated her nearest rival Tankadhar Tripathy of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in by-election on Jharsuguda assembly seat.
Das defeated Tripathy of BJP by a margin of 48,721 votes.
The Jharsuguda bypoll was necessiated by the killing of MLA and minister Naba Kisore Das in January. He was the father of Dipali Das.
With a convincing victory in the Jharsuguda by-election on Saturday, the ruling Biju Janata Dal led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Odisha is back on a winning streak ahead of the assembly and Lok Sabha polls next year.
The BJD has won six of the seven by-polls held in the state after the 2019 elections. The only defeat it suffered was in Dhamnagar when the BJP retained the seat in November last year.
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The BJD won the Jharsuguda seat for the second consecutive time after Naba Kishore Das joined the regional party. He had earlier won the seat twice in 2009 and 2014 as a Congress candidate. In 2019, the ruling party secured 55.97 per cent of the votes polled, 4.96 per cent less than what it did this time.
The saffron party too raised its vote share from 30.04 per cent in 2019 to 33.24 per cent this year. However, the Congress's vote per cent dropped from 10.68 per cent to 2.56 per cent.
As many as 79.21 per cent of voters exercised their franchise on May 10.
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Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik spoke to Dipali Das and congratulated her on the victory. An overwhelmed Dipali thanked Patnaik for campaigning for her.
"Though I lost my father, I got the father-like blessings and support from Naveen Patnaik ji," she said after winning.
Jubilant BJD workers erupted into celebrations in Jharsuguda and at the party office in Bhubaneswar. They played drums, burst firecrackers and distributed sweets, while the BJP state headquarters wore a deserted look.
BJP state president Manmohan Samal, however, said that the party has raised its vote share despite being defeated.
He said the BJP will introspect on the reasons behind its defeat in Jharsuguda.
Congress state Congress Sarat Pattnayak blamed the debacle on the shifting of the party’s rank and file to BJD after 2019.
(With PTI inputs)
