ROURKELA: The BJP that suffered severe drubbing in the panchayat elections emerged strong to win the chairperson post of Sundargarh Municipality. The ruling BJD, on the other hand, bagged the chairperson posts in the Rajgangpur and Birmitrapur municipalities.
In Sundargarh Municipality, BJP’s Tanaya Mishra polled 7,812 votes to win with a lead of 1,235 votes against nearest BJD rival and former municipality vice-chairperson Ranjana Panda who polled 6,577 votes. Insiders in the BJD admitted to the party rank being unhappy with Ranjana’s candidature. While the ruling party won 11 of the 19 ward councillor posts, it lost the chairperson seat.
The BJP ended up with seven councillor posts, while the remaining one went to Independent Sumanta Sahu. Political observers said the BJD’s Madhuri Lugun winning the Rajgangpur municipality chairperson post had much to do with the rebellion in the BJP than BJD’s popularity. Madhuri won with a margin of 3,502 votes.
Observers added that unable to contain infighting, the BJP wasted its winning advantage in Rajgangpur municipality poll. A controversial move by the Congress chairman candidate Iftekar Ahmad to abruptly pull out of the fray also favoured BJD with bulk of Congress votes shifting to it. Of 20 councillor posts in Rajgangpur, the BJD got 12, BJP three, Congress four and an independent candidate won as councillor.
BJD’s chairman candidate for Birmitrapur Municipality Sandeep Mishra had a comfortable win with a lead of 3,757 votes. The ruling party cornered nine of 11 councillor posts, while BJP and Congress shared one each. BJD had swept rural polls winning 33 of 35 Zilla Parishad seats and 11 of 17 block chairperson posts, while BJP got one and three posts.