FILE PICTURE OF VOTERS IN FRONT OF A POLLING BOOTH IN CUTTACKLALMOHAN PATNAIK AND VIKASH SHARMA

Cuttack, Feb. 10: The BJD has retained the civic body, but it saw its vote share fall marginally to 39.21 per cent, while for the Congress the figure went up to 24.12 per cent, a slight increase from the 22.89 per cent it had bagged in 2009.

Despite the drop in poll percentage, the BJD bagged 36 wards, while the Congress got nine wards, one less than the Independents’ tally of 10.

The BJP also saw its vote share go down to 15 per cent from the 2009 figure of 17. 25 per cent. In 2009, BJD had a share of 39.41 per cent of the votes and won 37 out of 54 wards. The party’s tally slipped to 36 with a 0.20 per cent fall in vote share.

BJD leader and Choudwar Cuttack MLA Pravat Biswal said majority of city residents have voted for the party as they were happy with the performance of the Naveen Patnaik government.

The party won in 10 of the 22 wards in Choudwar Cuttack Assembly segment as against 15 in 2009. In the Barabati Cuttack Assembly constituency, the party won 22 of the 31 wards and four of the six wards in Cuttack Assembly constituency. In 2009, the BJD had won 18 out of the 27 wards and four out of five wards in the two constituencies, respectively.

“People have once again reposed their faith in us as our party’s vote share has remained almost the same,” said BJD leader and Barabati Cuttack MLA Debashis Samantaray.

In the 2009 Congress had a vote share of 22.89 per cent. The party managed to increase its tally from eight to nine with 1.23 per cent rise in its share of votes.

“We have given close fight to the BJD in 18 wards,” City Congress Committee president Md Moquim said.

Though the BJP’s tally increased from two to four, the party’s vote share was 2.25 per cent less compared to 2009.

BJP state general secretary Nayan Kishore Mohanty conceded that there was need for introspection within the party to prepare for the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls months away.

Apart from the BJD, the other winner in this election is women. The new council will witness a dominance of women councillors as 32 of them have won from different wards. With 50 per cent seats being reserved for women in the civic polls, the strength of the women councillors have gone up significantly this time. In the outgoing council there were 20 women.

Independents also won in a big way this year. With a 21.37 per cent vote share, Independents bagged 10 wards as against six in the last civic polls with 20.43 per cent of the votes. Pyarimohan Mohapatra led Odisha Jana Morcha polled just one per cent of the votes.