Odisha panchayat polls: Ruling BJD leading, BJP distant second
The ruling Biju Janata Dal is leading in 274 Zilla Parishad Zone (ZPZ) seats while BJP candidates are ahead in 20 and the Congress in 16 seats as per latest trends of Odisha panchayat polls, officials said on Saturday. The counting of votes for 315 ZPZ seats began in different block headquarters at 8am on Saturday under strict adherence to Covid-19 guidelines, State Election Commission (SEC) officials said.
The counting for 315 ZPZ seats is being conducted on Saturday. The counting for another 307 ZP zones will be held on February 27 and the results of the remaining 229 ZP zones will be declared on February 28.
The 2017 panchayat elections in the state had marked the entry of the BJP as a strong contender in the state. The BJP had made inroads particularly in the western districts of the state, such as Balangir, Bargarh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Sambalpur and Subarnapur. The trends this time, however, show the BJP ceding ground in the western districts. The BJD maintained leads in all of the ZP zones in the said districts. For instance, in Balangir, the BJD was leading in 12 ZP zones while the BJP in two of the 34 seats. In Deograh, the BJD was leading in three of seven ZP zone. In 2017, the BJP had managed to win 58 zones of the 111, the BJD 37 and the Congress 16. Two years later in 2019, the BJP won from all the four Lok Sabha seats in western Odisha – Bargarh, Sambalpur, Balangir and. But it was the BJD that dominated in the Assembly election that same year, winning 17 of the 24 seats in the region, followed by the BJP with four seats and the Congress with three.
A total of 36,523 ward members, 126 sarpanch, 326 panchayat samiti members, and one Zilla Parishad member were declared winners without contest. A total of 2.2 lakh candidates had contested in the elections.
The State Election Commission had also announced that in case any discrepancies found between the ballot paper account prepared by the presiding officer and actual ballot papers in the ballot box, the actual ballot papers found in the ballot box shall be taken into account and accordingly counting will be done and results announced, SEC secretary R N Sahu said.
The polling was held in five different phases on February 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24. The overall voter turnout was 78.6 per cent this time, slightly better than the 78.03 per cent in 2017.
