Bhubaneswar, May 13 (IANS): The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was leading in Odisha's Jharsuguda Assembly bypoll with 7,633 votes against its nearest rival, the BJP on Saturday.
On completion of three rounds of counting, BJD candidate Dipali Das has secured 17,543 votes while BJP candidate Tankadhar Tripathy got 9,910 votes. Congress nominee Tarun Pandey got only 521 votes, officials in the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said.
In terms of percentage, the BJD got 60.64 per cent of the total votes counted so far, BJP 34.26 per cent and Congress secured only 1.8 per cent of votes.
Counting of votes began at 8 a.m. on Saturday amid tight security at Jharsuguda Engineering School.
Counting is being conducted on 14 tables. As votes polled in 253 booths will be counted, there will be 18 full rounds and another partial round.
Three-lawyer security arrangements have been made in and around the counting centre. It was expected that the counting would be completed between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., they said.
A total of 79.21 per cent of 2.21 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the bypoll held on May 10.
The byelection was held following the murder of sitting MLA and the then Health Minister Naba Kishore Das on January 29 this year.