Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is leading to a landslide victory in the panchayat polls for which counting is still underway.
According to officials of the State Election Commission (SEC), counting for the 315 Zilla Parishad (ZP) zones started Saturday while counting for 305 ZP zones was underway Sunday.
Counting of votes for the remaining zones will be taken up February 28. The ruling party already bagged 281 zones while it is leading in another 272 zones.
The BJP and the Congress have bagged 30 zones each while seven have gone to others. The day two counting of votes of commenced across the state for 307 Zilla Parishad zones, Sunday.
Out of 315 ZP zones of the first day of counting, final results of 300 zones are out.
Registering a landslide victory, the BJD has won 268 ZP seats while the BJP, which had emerged as the second largest party in Odisha during last rural poll in 2017, has been able to win only 14 seats in the first round.
The Congress too won 14 seats. Two independent and two other political party candidates won the ZP seats, the SEC officials said.
Of the 305 ZP seats where counting was underway (till 5 pm Sunday) the BJD was leading in 253 seats, BJP in 23, Congress in 16 and others in four zones. The BJD had won 476 seats in 2017.
The rural polls in Odisha were conducted in five phases — February 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24. A total of 2.2 lakh candidates were in the fry.
PNN