Patkura Bypoll Count: BJD’s Sabitri Agarwal Leads BJP’s Bijoy Mohapatra by 11,791 Votes

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate Sabitri Agarwal had opened up a lead of 11,791 votes over the BJP’s Bijoy Mohapatra in Odisha’s Patkura assembly constituency on Wednesday, an election official said, as votes from the July 20 poll were counted in Kendrapara district.

The count so far

At the end of the seventh round, Agarwal had 42,037 votes against 30,246 for Mohapatra. Congress nominee Jayanta Kumar Mohanty was a distant third with 1,107 votes.

Counting was under way at Kendrapara Autonomous College behind a three-tier security cordon, and the whole process was being video-recorded in line with Election Commission directions, the official said.

A poll postponed twice

Patkura was originally due to vote on April 29, but the poll was called off after the BJD’s candidate, Bed Prakash Agarwal, died on April 20. The Election Commission then fixed May 19 as the new date, only for voting to be put off again after cyclone Fani swept through Odisha’s coastal districts.

The BJD then nominated Sabitri Agarwal, widow of the late former MLA. Her main opponent, Mohapatra, is a long-standing adversary of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and was trying to return to the state assembly after almost two decades. The seat, in coastal Kendrapara, is regarded as politically sensitive.

Background

In the 2019 Odisha assembly election, the BJD won 112 seats, the BJP 23 and the Congress 9, and Naveen Patnaik was Chief Minister after the election.

See also: Constituencies | Elections

Originally published on 24 July 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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