Odisha Bypolls: BJD Retains Tirtol Assembly Seat For 4th Consecutive Time

Jagatsinghpur: BJD candidate Bijaya Shankar Das emerged victorious in byelection to Tirtol Assembly constituency by defeating his nearest BJP rival with a margin of over 40,000 votes on Tuesday.

The BJD retained the seat as Das polled 88310 votes against 46607 votes of BJP’s Raj Kishore Behera to win with a margin of 41703 votes. Behera had unsuccessfully contested 2009 and 2014 Assembly elections from the seat on Congress ticket.

While Congress came third in the ballot contest with its nominee Himanshu Bhusan Mallick getting 28778 votes, the Communist Party of India’s Bijay Kumar Bhoi garnered 1109 votes to come at fourth place.

This is for the fourth consecutive time that BJD has retained the constituency. The bypoll was necessitated following the death of sitting MLA Bishnu Charan Das, the father of Bijaya Shankar Das. Total nine candidates were in the fray.