Bhubaneswar: BJP supremo Naveen Patnaik and BJP and Congress state presidents Manmohan Samal and Sarat Pattanayak respectively, had to suffer defeats in the Odisha Assembly elections.
Although Patnaik won from his traditional Hinjili Assembly seat in Ganjam district by a slender margin of 4,636 votes, the five-term former chief minister had to suffer a humiliating defeat to a political novice in Kantabanji constituency in Bolangir.
The BJD supremo lost Kantabanji to BJP’s Laxman Bag by 16,344 votes. While Bag got 90,876 votes, Patnaik received 74,532 votes.
This was the first time that Patnaik faced electoral defeat in his political career spanning 26 years.
While the BJP stormed to power in Odisha by securing 78 seats in the Assembly, the party’s state unit president Manmohan Samal suffered defeat in Chandbali segment to BJD’s Byomakesh Ray by a margin of 1,916 votes.
While Ray secured 83,063 votes, Samal could manage to get 81,147 votes.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Sarat Pattanayak suffered a worse fate as he finished fourth in Nuapada Assembly segment, bagging only 15,501 votes.
The seat was bagged by BJD candidate Rajendra Dholakia, who got 61,822 votes, while Independent nominee Ghasiram Majhi came second, securing 50,941 votes.
PTI