Bhubaneswar: The ruling BJD on Friday posted a maiden victory in the byelection to the Bijatala Zilla Parishad Zone No-32 in Mayurbhanj district.
BJD candidate Raghunath Majhi defeated his nearest BJP rival Kutulu Hansda by 4,212 votes. While Majhi polled 8,875 votes, Hansda managed to get 4,663 votes. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) candidate secured 2,768 votes while the Congress could poll only 166 votes.
The victory is a major boost for BJD in Mayurbhanj district as the party had suffered heavy losses in the district during the Zilla Parishad elections in 2017.
In 2017, the BJP had secured over 7,000 votes followed by the JMM, which had polled over 5,000 votes while the BJD had come third with over 3,000 votes.
It is worthwhile here to mention that neither the erstwhile Janata Dal nor the BJD had won Bijatala ZP seat here in the past. While the BJP had won from here in the last two elections, the JMM had won the seat earlier.
