Bhubaneswar: Reacting to party’s debacle in Dhamnagar, BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said that he was aware of BJP’s victory in the by-election.
“I have always respected the verdict of the people. The BJP MLA (Bishnu Sethi) had died recently, he was quite popular. His son was given the ticket. So we expected that they would win this byelection,” said Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik said.
The opposition BJP on Sunday retained the Dhamnagar assembly seat by defeating the ruling BJD by a margin of 9,881.
The bypoll was necessitated by the death of BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi in September.
Sethi’s son Suryabanshi Suraj, who was the party’s candidate, secured 80,351 votes, while BJD’s Abanti Das bagged 70,470 votes, the official said.
Congress nominee Baba Harekrushna Sethi got only 3,561 votes. Rajendra Das alias Raju, who was fighting the by-poll independently after being sidelined by the BJD, received 8,153 votes.
