Odisha Bypoll Results 2019: BJD candidate Rita Sahu Wins Bijepur Assembly Seat

Odisha Bypoll Results 2019: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate Rita Sahu has won the crucial by-election to Bijepur Assembly constituency in Bargarh district. Rita Sahu won the seat by a margin of 97,990 votes. Rita Sahu garnered 1,35,957 votes while her nearest rival and BJP candidate Sanath Gartia bagged 37,967 votes. Sahu has secured over 73 per cent of the total polled votes while Gartia has garnered around 20 per cent of it.

On the other hand, Congress candidate Dilip Kumar Panda got 5,873 votes. Besides, A total of 1982 votes were recorded for NOTA (none of the above). Following the BJD's win, celebrations erupted at its party offices in Bhubaneswar and Bargarh. 

Interestingly, Rita Sahu has broken chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s tally of 1,10,604 votes during the 2019 assembly elections in the segment. "Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik congratulated Rita Sahu for her huge historic win, breaking all records in Odisha's electoral history," the CMO said.

It is to be noted that an estimated 72 per cent of voters exercised their franchise on Monday in bypolls in one Odisha Assembly seat. The main contestants for the bypoll were Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP’s) Sanath Gartia, ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate Rita Sahu and Congress’s Dillip Kumar Panda, two other candidates were also in the fray for the Bijepur Assembly seat.

The bypoll to the politically-sensitive seat in Bargarh district was necessitated after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who had won from two seats in the Assembly polls held in April, resigned from Bijepur and retained his home-turf Hinjili in Ganjam district.

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