By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, November 6, 2022: Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won the by poll to Dhamnagar assembly constituency in Bhadrak district after the party’s candidate Suryabanshi Suraj defeated the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) Abanti Das by an emphatic margin of 9,881 votes.

Suraj, son of late MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi, whose death in September this year had necessitated the bypoll, polled 80,351 votes while the BJD’s Abanti Das secured 70,470 votes. The Congress, which has been on a perpetual decline could win just about 2.1 % votes.

Suraj, 27, will be the youngest MLA of the current Assembly.

This is the first by poll defeat of the BJD since 2009 when the party severed its ties with the BJP ahead of the assembly elections. Since 2019 assembly by polls, the party has won in 5 assemblies by polls, including one which they wrested from BJP.

Union education minister and senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan, who spearheaded the campaign in Dhamnagar, said the by poll victory was a victory of democracy. “It is a victory of the youth and women. The result reflects the mood of people in Odisha as well as Odisha’s trust in the decisive and credible leadership of PM Modi,” said Pradhan while expressing his gratitude to the people of Dhamnagar.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik said he respected the verdict. “We have lost very few by-elections. MLA Bisnu C Sethi died recently & he was quite popular. BJP held the seat for a number of years. His son was given the ticket. It was expected that they would win,” Patnaik tweeted.

Despite resistance in the party, Patnaik had given the ticket to a less fancied Abanti Das, chairperson of a panchayat samiti and a former member of the women self-help group (SHG). The nomination led to immediate revolt with former party MLA Rajendra Das deciding to contest, which proved costly for the BJD as Das polled 8,153 votes denting the party’s own votes while the victory margin of the BJP candidate was 9,881 votes.