Exuding confidence in the BJD’s win in the Balasore Parliamentary constituency in Odisha, 5T Chairman and the party’s leader VK Pandian said that there is a Naveen (Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik) wave in every place in the constituency.
“Today we campaigned in Balasore Parliamentary constituency. The kind of response we are getting, Naveen wave is evident in every place throughout Balasore…we are very confident of winning with a good margin this time,” Pandian told ANI on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, he held a roadshow in the constituency where many BJD supporters turned up. From the open vehicle, he waved at them with many people holding BJD flags.
The Balasore Lok Sabha seat is set to witness a triangular contest with the Congress’s Srikant Jena, the BJP’s Pratap Sarangi and the BJD’s Lekhashree Samantsinghar mounting fierce campaigns.
Sarangi is currently holding the seat. In the 2019 election, he defeated Biju Janata Dal’s Rabindra Kumar Jena by 12,956 votes.
In 2014, BJD’s Jena emerged victorious with 433,768 votes, surpassing BJP’s Sarangi by 141,825 votes.
In 2009, Indian National Congress’ Srikant Kumar Jena won the seat.
The assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the BJD-ruled state are being held across four phases–from May 13 to June 1.
The counting of votes for all phases in the state and elsewhere in the country will be held on June 4.
In the last assembly elections in 2019, the BJD took home the bulk of the electoral spoils in the state, winning 112 out of the 146 seats. The BJP won 23 seats while Congress had to be content with just 9.
In the Lok Sabha elections that same year, the BJD mopped up the lion’s share of the spoils, with the BJP and the Congress bringing up the rear. The BJD won 12 seats, the BJP finished a close second at 8, and the Congress bagged just a lone seat.
