The ruling BJD continued its winning spree in the ongoing urban local body elections by emerging as the single largest party in both Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Baripada Municipality.
While BJD candidates won in 36 seats of the 59-wards in CMC, the party candidates captured 21 of the 28 wards in Baripada Municipality.
In Cuttack, as predicted, the BJD could not repeat its recent Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) performance. Last time in 2009, the BJD had won in 37 seats of the 54-ward council.
The opposition Congress, on the other hand, improved its tally winning nine seats.
Independent candidates won in 10 seats, while the BJP could manage to win in three as the results of only 58 wards were declared.
The result of Ward No. 58 could not be announced because of a glitch in an EVM.
New political parties like Odisha Jana Morcha, Aama Odisha, Utkal Bharat, Biju Swabhiman Dal, and Left parties CPI(M), CPI and SUCI could not open their accounts.
Similarly, in Baripada, the Congress could not open its account, where the BJP managed to win one seat while the remaining six seats went to others, including JMM.
Though the party captured 36 wards in Cuttack, many high-profile candidates lost the elections.
On the other hand, the Congress camp appeared somewhat content for having improved its tally in Cuttack in comparison to Bhubaneswar. It had won only two seats out of 67 in Bhubaneswar, elections which were held about a month ago.
