Tag: Poll

Since losing the Dhamnagar assembly bypoll to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Naveen Patnaik and the BJD have gone winless in Odisha (BJP). Saffron won this coastal seat by 9,881 votes.The BJD hasn't lost a state by-election since the 2019 general elections, when it won a fifth straight term as the state's ruling party with a supermajority of 112 in the assembly of 147. Since 2019, it had won every byelection, including the 2020 Balasore Sadar seat from the BJP. The BJP lost Balasore Sadar, bringing its total assembly seats to 22, although it remains the state's main opposition, a distinction it acquired from the Congress in 2019. Despite the BJP fielding Suryabanshi Suraj, the son of former MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi, who had died, most BJD leaders were confident of regaining the seat ...