Balangir: Public anger in providing justice to Mamita Meher, the teacher who was allegedly murdered, had its repercussions on the three-tier panchayat elections in Odisha’s Balangir district.
Mamita’s uncle, Koushik Meher, who contested the ZP election from Turekela 2 (Zone 11) on a Congress ticket, defeated a BJD-backed candidate. He secured 8,548 votes and won by a margin of 1,212 votes against the BJD candidate.
Congress registered a win from four ZP zones in the district in the just-concluded three-tier panchayat election. Another uncle of Mamita, Raghubir Meher, who contested for sarpanch post from their native village, Jharni, also won.
This is sharp contrast to the BJD’s landslide victory in the elections and goes on to portray people’s anger for the failure of the ruling party to provide justice to Mamita and her family in the murder case.
It may be mentioned that the lady teacher’s murder witnessed protests on the roads and in the Assembly over the alleged link of Minister of State for Home Dibya Shankar Mishra with prime accused Gobind Sahu.
Of the 34 zilla parishad zone seats, BJD won an overwhelming 26 seats while the saffron outfit managed just four. Congress which has two MLAs in the district also bagged four zones.
