Odisha rural polls: BJD wins 743 of 829 Zilla Parishad seats; BJP, Congress bite dust

**Bhubaneswar:**The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) continued its winning streak in the Odisha panchayat elections, securing 87.20 per cent of the Zilla Parishad zones by winning 743 of the 829 seats, the results of which have been declared so far, State Election Commission (SEC) said on Tuesday.

Of the state’s total 852 Zilla Parishad seats, the commission has completed the counting of votes in 829 seats, while that in the remaining seats is underway. The results are expected to be declared during the day, an SEC official said.

While the BJD has won 743 seats, rival BJP could manage to secure only 42 seats followed by Congress with 37 seats. Independent candidates won three seats while others got four seats.

Of the results announced so far, the BJD has gained 267 more seats as compared to its performance in the previous panchayat polls of 2017. The BJP lost 255 ZP seats in 2022. While the saffron party had secured 297 ZP seats in 2017 elections, its tally has now come down to 42.

The Congress, which had bagged 60 ZP seats in 2017, has now won only 37 seats. The seats won by Independents and others, which were 17 in the previous election, have dipped to only seven in this election.

The ruling party, with its landslide victory, is now all set to form the parishad in all the 30 districts of the state. The BJP had last time formed the parishad in eight districts.

While BJP, the state’s main opposition party, failed to win any of the ZP seats in 10 districts, the Congress could not open its account in 18 districts.

The districts where BJP could not win any of the ZP seats were Bhadrak, Deogarh, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Jharsuguuda, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nabbarangpur and Rayagada.

Similarly, Congress candidates could not open their accounts in the districts of Angul, Bargarh, Bhadrak, Boudh, Cuttack, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Kendrapara, Keonjhar, Khurda, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarh, Puri, Sambalpur and Sundargarh.

The three-tier panchayat elections were held in five phases on 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 February, while counting was done on 26, 27 and 28 February. The counting is still underway as re-counting is being held in some places, the SEC official said.

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