Bhubaneswar: The ruling BJD is trailing in its traditional Lok Sabha bastions – Aska, Kendrapada, Cuttack, Berhampur, Jagatsinghpur, Dhenkanal and Bhadrak- according to early trends in counting of votes for the 21 seats in Odisha.
The two surprise candidates – Abinash Samal and Ranjita Sahu – are trailing in Aska and Dhenkanal, respectively, so also BJD’s Balikuda-Erasama MLA Prasant Muduli in Jagatsinghpur and Congress turncoat Anshuman Mohanty in pocket borough Kendrapada. Similarly, Bhrugu Buxipatra is trailing in the fight between turncoats in Berhampur.
Sitting MP Manjulata Mandal has not been able to take early leads in Bhadrak while Santrupt Misra is trailing in the fight between seasoned MP and corporate veteran in Cuttack.
The BJD had named women candidates for Bargarh, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Koraput, Aska and Balasore seats, keeping with its promised 33% mark. Among them, sitting MP Sarmistha Sethi is only candidate, who is leading in Jajpur, as per the early trends.
The counting of votes for Lok Sabha elections in Odisha got underway at 21 centres across the state at 8 am. The BJP is leading in 17 seats and the BJD and Congress in 2 seats each.
In 2019 elections, the BJD had won 12 LS seats, BJP managed 8, and the Congress was left with just 1 out of 21 seats up for grabs.
