Bhubaneswar/UNI: Ruling BJD Candidate Dipali Das won the byelection to Jharsuguda Assembly seat defeating her nearest rival Tankadhar Tripathy of BJP by a record margin of 48, 619 votes.

While Dipali garnered 10,7003 votes, Tankadhar secured 58,384 votes in the byelection.

Congress candidate Tarun Pandey, son of former Congress MLA Biren Pandey fished a distant third polling only 4,473 votes and lost his deposit.

Dipali, the daughter of former sitting BJD MLA and former Health Minister Nabakishore Das, whose murder on January 29 last necessitated the by-election faired better than her late father.

While Naba Kishore Das in 2019 general election won the Jharsuguda Assembly seat by a margin of 45,699 votes , Dipali won the seat by a margin of 48,619 votes in the byelection.

The Jharsuguda Assembly Constituency was a bastion of Congress and never won by the BJP.

Naba Kishore Das had won the Jharsuguda Assembly seat as a Congress candidate in 2009, and 2014 by defeating his nearest rival Kishore Mohanty of BJD.

He, however, switched over his loyalty, joined the BJD before the 2019 election and won the seat as a BJD party candidate in 2019 Assembly election.

He was allotted a cabinet portfolio in the Naveen Patnaik government and made Health and Family welfare Minister. Das continued to hold the Health and Family welfare portfolio till his assassination on January 29 last by an ASI of Odisha police on January 29 at Brajarajnagar where he had gone to attend a function.

Last year in the byelection to Padampur Assembly seat ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate Barsha Singh Bariha had won the seat by a massive margin of 42,679 votes over her nearest rival BJP candidate Pradeep Purohit.

Veteran Congress leader Satya Bhusan Sahu however, lost his security deposit in the by-election.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of incumbent MLA Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha and the BJD had fielded his daughter Barsha Singh Bariha as party candidate.