Winning back Balasore was a challenge: Pratap Jena

BHUBANESWAR: A day after reclaiming the Balasore seat from the BJP, state housing and urban development minister Pratap Jena, who spearheaded the party’s campaign in the constituency, said winning back the seat was a challenge.
Though the BJD did not win the seat by a huge margin, Jena said they are satisfied with the performance. BJD candidate Swarup Kumar Das won the seat by a margin of 13,351 votes.The BJD also retained Tirtol, with Bijay Shankar Das winning by 41,703 votes.
“Though we had lost the seat by more than 13,000 votes in the 2019 assembly elections, in the bypoll we won it by more than 13,000 votes. The late MLA of BJP (Madan Mohan Dutta) had a good organizational strength and there was also a sympathy wave in favour of his son, who was the BJP candidate. Despite all these, we have won the seat with a good margin,” said Jena on Wednesday. Jena said the popularity of chief minister Naveen Patnaik and good governance in Odisha are the factors behind BJD’s success in Balasore and Tirtol bypolls.
“Our campaign was based on the good work of the state government, development of the state and various pro-people and pro-poor schemes. Whenever we spoke about these programmes during the campaign, people accepted them ,” Jena added. He also rubbished the opposition claim of money power behind the victory. “Our candidate (Swarup Kumar Das) was not an established leader. Swarup has continuously served the people of Balasore. So, they have blessed him,” he said.