Bhubaneswar: The BJD maintained its winning run in elections despite the BJP's emergence as a contender force in the state.

The BJP's attempts to penetrate into the coastal belt, considered a traditional bastion of the BJD, failed to take off once again with the BJD sweeping the bypoll to zone 30 of Jajpur zila parishad, the result of which was announced on Thursday.

BJD state secretary Bijay Nayak, who hails from the district, said: "The BJD's position has been consolidated further in the district."

"Whatever efforts the BJP may make, it will not be able to make inroads neither in Jajpur nor the coastal belt," he added.

Election to the seat was necessitated following the death of BJD member Bhagabat Prasad Mishra in a road accident in May.

BJD candidate Biswa Pratap Mishra got 12,799 votes, beating his nearest rival, Manmanth Baral of the BJP (6,674 votes), by a whopping margin of 6,125 votes. The Congress stood third with its candidate Amfizul Rahman getting 1,744 votes.

"We have got an additional 2,000 votes compared to the last poll. Our vote percentage has seen a six per cent spike, while that of the BJP has plunged by four per cent compared to the last election," said Nayak.

The BJP has made several concerted efforts to penetrated into the coastal belt of Odisha with even Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a meeting in Cutttack on May 26. Thousands of people from Jajpur had been roped in for that meeting as the BJP looked to solidify its position ahead of the general and Assembly elections next year.

The BJP's national president, Amit Shah, on July 1 had held strategy sessions with party leaders and workers with the aim of making inroads into the coastal belt. He set the state party a target of winning 120 out of 147 assembly seats in the state, which is possible only if the BJP manages to make significant inroads into the coastal area where it has only two MLAs at present - at Remuna and in Chilika.

Winning the bypoll was almost a foregone conclusion for the BJD with local residents highlighting its organisational network in the area and the sympathy factor, that they said would act as a bonus. The BJP's Jajpur MLA Pranab Prakash Das supervised the party's campaign as he felt that his own prestige was involved in the contest. On the other hand, the Congress's district unit president Manoj Kumar Rout and BJP district unit president Goutam Ray supervised the campaigns for their respective candidates.

Significantly, the BJD has done well in all the bypolls held at Paradip, Pattamundia and Angul, winning all three.

The Congress, on the other hand, cut a sorry state. Despite a recent change in the state leadership, it could not manage to improve its position and was relegated to third place. At present, out of the 39 zila parishad seats in the district, the BJD has 33 seats and the BJP six. The Congress has failed to open an account in zila parishad.

BJP state vice-president Samir Mohanty said: "This was a by-poll. Though we could not win it, we still remain number two. We had not even concentrated on that by bypoll. But the general elections will be a different one and every one will certainly be surprised to see the BJP's growth."