The BJP on Thursday registered a historic landslide for the second time after the counting indicated that it was set to win more than 300 seats. However, the news for the party from Puri in Odisha wasn’t that positive as it emerged that Sambit Patra had lost to his nearest rival, Pinaki Misra of the BJD, by 11,000 votes.
Throughout the counting on Thursday, Patra’s luck kept changing but late night it emerged that he was still trailing his rival. The Election Commission’s website said that Misra was leading Patra by more than 12,000 votes.
Patra has been away from Twitter and has not tweeted anything on Thursday. He has also not removed Chowkidar prefix from his Twitetr name, whilst all other BJP leaders have done so.
The BJP had to suffer a setback in Kendrapara, where its candidate Bijayant Panda lost to BJD’s by 1.3 lakh votes. Panda, who was elected on a BJD ticket from here in 2014, had joined the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls this year.
At the time of writing this report, the BJP was leading on eight seats in Odisha, while the ruling BJD had maintained its lead on 12 seats. The Congress was shown to be leading on the remaining one seat.
The BJD also performed remarkably well in the assembly polls that were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections. Of the 146 seats, the party headed by Chief Minister Naveek Patnaik was set to win 113 seats. The BJP was leading on 22 seats, while the Congress was leading on 9 seats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Patnaik for his re-election as the state’s chief minister. He wrote, “Congratulations to Naveen Babu for yet another victory in Odisha. Wishing him the very best for the next term.”
Patnaik too thanked Modi for his wishes as he wrote, “Thank you PM @narendramodi ji for your wishes on @bjd_odisha’s spectacular performance in #OdishaElections2019. Congratulate #NDA and @BJP4India for the huge victory in #LokSabhaElections2019. Look forward to working together for the people of #Odisha.”