BALANGIR: DESPITE the landslide victory of BJD in the State, the party failed to impress voters of Balangir who chose to show the door to the incumbent MP and three MLA candidates contesting in the district.
The two-time BJD MP Kalikesh Singh Deo lost his ground to BJP candidate and his sister-in-law Sangeeta Singh Deo by around 19,000 votes. This is the fourth time that Sangeeta will represent the Balangir MP seat.
BJD also lost Loisingha, Kantabanji and Balangir Assembly seats to its opponents. In fact, in Kantabanji, BJD finished in the third position with Congress candidate winning the seat. BJP won Loisingha Assembly segment where its debutant contestant Dr Mukesh Mahaling, a scientist, scored over his BJD rival Pradeep Behera, an engineer, by a margin of 13,000 votes.
The ruling party compensated the loss by retaining Titlagarh and Patnagarh. In Titlagarh, Tukuni Sahu defeated Surendra Singh Bhoi of Congress by a margin of over 19,000 while in Patnagarh, it decimated the fort of KV Singh Deo who lost to new entrant Saroj Meher of BJD. KV, who held the fort for five consecutive terms, was defeated by Meher by 10,000 votes.
Congress not only retained its Balangir Assembly seat but also won Kantabanji. While Narasingh Mishra won Balangir, Kantabanji was won by Santosh Singh Saluja. It was a neck-to-neck fight between Congress and BJP candidates in Kantabanji where Saluja defeated his rival Laxman Bag by 128 votes.
Meanwhile, the BJD and BJP candidates from Kantabanji have alleged miscalculation of votes. They alleged that while the total votes polled was 1,82,411, the number of votes that were counted was 1,91,323. However, Titlagarh Sub-Collector refuted the allegation.