Puri: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has managed to retain four Assembly seats out of six in Puri district in 2019 elections.
However, the regional party lost two Assembly seats in the district to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJD had won all six Assembly segments in Puri district in 2014 elections.
As per the May 23 results, three new faces have been elected to the Assembly from the district while three old-timers have retained their seats.
BJP nominees Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra and Jayanta Sarangi have been elected for the first time from Brahmagiri and Puri Assembly segments respectively. Similarly, BJD candidate Tusarkanti Behera has been elected for the first time from Kakatpur Assembly seat.
However, BJD candidates Pradeep Maharathy, Umakanta Samantray and Samir Ranjan Dash have managed to retain Pipli, Satyabadi and Nimapara segments respectively.
As per the data, BJD nominee Tusarkanti Behera has defeated Congress party nominee Bishwabhusan Das by a margin of 45, 691 votes from Kakatpur segment. Behera has managed to secure 91, 897 votes while Das managed 46,206 votes. BJP’s Rabi Mallick was at third place by securing 30,771 votes.
BJP candidate Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra has defeated BJD nominee Sanjay Das Burma by a margin of 2,130 votes from Brahmagiri seat. Mohapatra got altogether 88,256 votes while Das Burma got 86, 126 votes. Congress candidate is at distant third with just 2,504 votes.
BJP’s Jayanta Sarangi has snatched away Puri Assembly seat from BJD by defeating heavyweight leader Maheswar Mohanty. Sarangi got 76, 747 votes while Mohanty got 72, 739 votes. The victory margin is 4,008 votes. Congress candidate Auroprasad Mishra secured the third position with 2,934 votes.
BJD leader Pradeep Maharathy has been elected from Pipli seat for the seventh term. As many as 88,518 voters have cast their votes in favour of Maharathy while BJP nominee Ashrit Pattnaik secured 72,731 votes. The victory margin is 15,787 votes. Congress candidate Ajit Mangaraj got only 9,830 votes.
BJD nominee Umakanta Samantray has been elected for the second time from Satyabadi seat. Samantray has defeated BJP’s Omprakash Mishra by a margin of 17,812 votes. Samantray was polled 80,537 votes while Mishra got 62,725 votes.
Samir Ranjan Dash of BJD has scored a hat-trick by retaining Nimapara seat in the 2019 elections. Dash has trounced BJP Mahila Morcha state president Pravati Parida by a margin of 32, 008 votes.
Dash has managed to secure 91, 160 votes while Parida got 59,152 votes. Dillip Nayak of Congress is at third position by securing 33,576 votes.