BHUBANESWAR: BJD candidates have established comfortable leads in both Balasore Sadar and Tirtol assembly constituencies in the bypolls.
In the Balasore Sadar seat where the BJP is giving a tough challenge, the lead of the ruling BJD candidate has increased to 3,160 votes by the end of the 5th round of counting. While BJD candidate Swarup Das has polled 18,902 votes, BJP's Manas Ranjan Dutta is trailing behind with 15,741 votes. Mamata Kundu of Congress has so far polled only 1,670 votes.
In Tirtol seat, BJD's Bijay Shankar Das has established a clear lead of 8,114 votes by polling 21,996 votes against BJP rival Raj Kishore Behera who has got 13,882 votes. Congress candidate Himanshu Bhushan Mallick is trailing behind in third place with 2,790 votes.