BHUBANESWAR: The ruling BJD romped home in the Jharsuguda bypoll with consumate ease as its candidate Deepali Das, the daughter of slain minister Naba Kishore Das, trounced her nearest rival Tankadhar Tripathy of the BJP by a huge margin of 48,721 votes on Saturday.
Deepali secured 1,07,198 votes as against 58,477 votes cornered by Tankadhar while Congress’ Tarun Pandey lost his deposit managing to bag only 4,496 votes. The BJD candidate, was leading from the first round and continued her dominance till the final of the counting making it amply clear that the BJD still holds complete sway over the voters in Odisha.
Even as the BJP managed to improve its vote share by polling 33.24 per cent, it was no match for the BJD juggernaut that crossed a whopping 60.93 per cent. The vote share of Congress, on the other hand, dropped to a meagre 2.56 per cent.
By securing 8,578 more votes than her late father, a three-time MLA who switched over to the BJD just before the 2019 elections, Deepali proved wrong the Opposition’s ploy of making the deteriorating law and order situation, including Das’ murder, a major poll plank. She will be the youngest member of the state Assembly now.
Tankadhar though also got 5,556 more votes than that of his party in the last Assembly elections. Congress lost over 14,000 votes which went straight to the BJD account. Interestingly, as many as 2,073 votes went in favour of NOTA.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik spoke to Deepali immediately after the result was announced and congratulated her for the resounding victory. Expressing his gratitude to the voters, the chief minister said, “I am heavily indebted to the people of Jharsuguda people for their continued faith on the BJD.”
Naveen himself was present at the celebration in party office ‘Sankha Nivas’ in Bhubaneswar. He promised that the BJD will continue its efforts with renewed vigour for the development of Jharsuguda.
In response to her victory, Deepali said it was possible due to the love and affection of the people for her father. She also had the blessings of her late father and the chief minister. Terming Naveen as a father figure, Deepali said she will work earnestly to complete all the developmental works her father had initiated.
Reacting to the result, Tankadhar said there was a fight between ‘parishram’ (hard work) and ‘paisa’ (money) in the bypoll and the former was defeated by the latter. “The election result will no way dampen the spirit of the BJP. The fight will be more sharpened in the coming days to make Jharsuguda more developed and secure,” he said.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan conceded defeat in the by-election and congratulated Deepali on her victory. He also thanked the voters for supporting the BJP and pushing the party’s vote share up.
The by-election was necessitated following the sensational murder of the former health minister Naba Kishore Das by an ASI of police on duty on January 29 this year.