BHUBANESWAR: Around 70 per cent (pc) of voters cast their votes in the bypolls to two Assembly constituencies in the State, according to tentative figures released by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
Polling in the Balasore Sadar seat which witnessed a tough fight between the ruling BJD and BJP has dropped by nearly 10 pc compared to 2019 elections. The seat witnessed 71 pc turnout compared to 80.83 pc in 2019 and 74.08 pc in 2014 Assembly elections.
Similarly, Tirtol recorded 69.99 pc of polling by 6 pm compared to 73.66 pc in 2019 and 75.48 pc in 2014 Assembly elections.CEO Sushil Kumar Lohani told mediapersons that polling was by and large peaceful across the two constituencies. He said that polling percentage released is tentative and is likely to increase when final tabulation will completed on Wednesday.
Though the voting percentage in Balasore is considered to be high in view of the extraordinary situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the BJD poll managers are not very enthused. The ruling party had gone all out to wrest the seat from the BJP. Around 100 ministers, MPs, MLAs and senior leaders had camped in the constituency to oversee the elections.
Besides, the party had also fielded Swarup Kumar Das, a new face to steer clear from the factionalism in the district unit and counter the sympathy wave in favour of BJP candidate Manas Ranjan Dutta, son of Madan Mohan Dutta whose death had necessitated the bypoll.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, Madan had polled 47.26 pc of the votes compared to 38.79 pc votes garnered by BJD’s Jiban Pradeep Das. The Congress candidate Manas Ranjan Das Pattnaik had finished a poor third with only 12.45 pc of the votes. This time though, the Congress has also fielded a new face, Mamata Kundu and expects to improve its performance.
In Tirtol, observers believe that the fight was easy for the BJD, which has fielded Bijay Shankar Das, son of late sitting MLA Bishnu Charan Das, despite an enthusiastic campaigning by both BJP and Congress. In the 2019 elections, Bishnu had polled 54.18 pc votes against 30.9 pc by Ramakant Bhoi of the BJP.
This time, BJP has fielded Raj Kishore Behera, who was the Congress candidate in 2014 Assembly elections and had polled 33.21 pc of the votes. Congress has fielded Himanshu Bhusan Mallick, a new face and expects to improve its performance.