BHUBANESWAR: Independents who gave a tough fight to both BJD and BJP snatched nine corporator seats in the urban local body polls to Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.
Puspita Rout, who contested as an independent, won the corporator seat in Ward 46, which is home to many BJD bigwigs including party’s organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das. Rout won the seat defeating her nearest BJD rival Pushpalata Mahatathy by over 1,100 votes.
Independent candidate Bandita Pal has also won in Ward 37 defeating a BJD candidate. The ward which includes Nayapalli had remained a BJD stronghold for years.
Similarly, independent candidates Chandra Sekhar Malya from Ward 60, Rashmi Rekha Patsani from Ward 65, Namita Mohapatra from Ward 58, Dipak Mishra from Ward 24, Pinki Swain from Ward 15, Sasmita Sahu from Ward 9 and Itishree Dash from Ward 13 have also emerged victorious in the urban polls defeating both BJD and BJP candidates.
A number of BJD candidates also lost to BJP in the corporator election despite party changing faces in a number of wards.
The ruling party which had denied ticket to five time corporator and senior BJD leader Sheikh Nizamuddin, fielded A Raju, a new face as its candidate from Ward 29. The ward, however, went to BJP where saffron party candidate Aparupa Narayan Rout won. BJP’s Ramchandra Ranasingh also won in Ward 50 which had remained with BJD earlier.