Star campaigners lose out in Balasore!

BALASORE: The charisma of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik and second-in-command Pyarimohan Mohapatra did not work for the party here. The party candidates have lost from places where the two leaders had campaigned. While Geetanjali Sahu has been defeated by  Minati Panda of Congress from Zilla Parishad (ZP) zone 19 that falls under Bahanaga block, BJD’s Gayatri Hansda lost to Congress’ Chhabi Singh in ZP zone 43 under Soro block. This despite the fact that Naveen campaigned at Saud in zone 19 and Pyari canvassed in Mangalpur zone 43. Similarly, the BJD-supported sarpanch, panchayat samiti (PS) candidates lost the elections in many areas where BJD district president Ananta Das and Bhadrak MP Arjun Sethi had campaigned.Star campaigners of Congress and BJP also have met the same fate. Congress’ ZP candidate for zone 20 Kamal Lochan Panda lost to BJD nominee Ramakanta Das by a margin of 1,000 votes even after Odisha in-charge of Congress Jagdish Tytler campaigned for him at Bishnupur.The BJP’s condition was the worse.  While not a single BJP ZP candidate won the election, all candidates fielded by Nilagiri MLA Pratap Sarangi have lost the elections miserably.     Similarly, all the NCP candidates fielded by Arun Dey were defeated in the ZP election. This is another setback for the NCP leader who had lost the Parliament poll in 2009 despite the support from BJD.