BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik is understood to have expressed unhappiness over the party’s winning margin in Patkura Assembly election, though it was successful in preventing the entry of Bijay Mohapatra to the Assembly.
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Though BJD candidate, Sabitri Agarwalla defeated Mohapatra by a margin of 17,920 votes, sources said the Chief Minister was expecting a bigger margin.
Almost the entire Cabinet and more than two dozen MLAs had camped in the constituency. Besides, Naveen had also campaigned for two days in the constituency. The election, which was deferred twice, was considered a prestige battle for the two leaders.
Naveen on Thursday reviewed the result which showed that the BJP has made considerable inroads in the constituency. Insiders said Naveen asked the leaders in-charge of Patkura elections how BJP could make inroads in the constituency which is considered a BJD fort.
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Naveen wanted to know how Mohapatra managed to secure 78,097 votes, which is 55,509 votes more than the 2014 BJP candidate Manas Ranjan Mohanty, who had secured 21,588 votes then. BJD winning margin has gone up by 6,164 votes in Patkura between 2014 and 2019.
In 2014 its former MLA Bed Prakash Agarwalla had secured 89,853 votes and in the recent polls his wife Sabitri got 96,017 votes.
However, there is one solace for the BJD leaders. The ruling party candidate established lead in all the three blocks of the constituency, Derabis, Garadpur and Marshaghai.
Out of the three blocks Garadpur is considered to be the stronghold of Mohapatra from where he trailed by 2,650 votes.
However, in 2014 Lok Sabha polls BJD candidate Anubhav Mohanty was behind his BJP rival Baijayant Panda in Garadpur and Marshaghai blocks.
Among others, Ministers Arun Sahoo, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Prafulla Mallick, Mahakalpada MLA Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, senior MLAs Debi Prasad Mishra, Pradeep Panigrahi and Pratap Deb and former minister Sanjay Dasburma who were in-charge of Patkura elections attended the meeting.
After the meeting, Deb said discussions were held regarding the present position of BJD in all the 51 gram panchayats of Patkura Assembly segment.