Bhubaneswar: After 3 unsuccessful bids, BJP’s Jagannath Pradhan had hoped to run the victory lap riding the Narendra Modi wave, which presumably swept through Odisha in the twin polls, but lost to BJD’s Ananta Narayan Jena again but by a razor-thin margin of 37 votes.
The nail-biting contest for Bhubaneswar-Central assembly seat proved how a few votes can change the fate of a candidate.
Speaking to the media, Pradhan that the Returning Officer had rejected his request for recounting of votes. “I was asked to mention specific booths and even that was rejected, which created a doubt in my mind about misuse of government machinery to ensure my defeat,” he alleged.
He added that he had spoken to the BJP leadership and may move the court to challenge the results.
The BJP leader, however, later said that it was his misfortune that he lost the election by such a narrow margin. “Our party will form government in Odisha and I will continue to serve the people of the constituency.”
Pradhan had first contested the 2009 elections as an independent and then as BJP candidate in the subsequent 2 elections. He had lost the 2019 elections to Jena by a margin of 11442 votes. The Bhubneswar-Central seat saw a tough contest this time as Jena polled in 53759 votes while Pradhan got 53722.
BJD’s Aswinin Patra, Arun Sahoo and Madhab Dhada and Ashok Kumar Das of Congress were the other candidates to have scored a win by a margin of less than 1,000 votes.
While Patra, former culture minister, won the Jaleswar seat by 319 votes, Sahoo was among the few BJD heavyweights, who could retain their seats. Nayagarh saw a nail-biting finish with the former education minister managing to garner 439 votes more than his BJP rival Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh. Das won Basudevpur seat by a margin of 631 votes while Dhada emerged victorious in Soro by 802 votes.
BJD’s Biswa Ranjan Mallick won the Assembly election from Bari by the highest margin of 51,466 votes, followed by his party colleagues Pradip Sahu, who won the Begunia seat by 47,814 votes, and Sanantan Mahakud in Champua by 39,994 votes.
