In the second round of counting, BJD takes a significant lead.
In the second round of counting, BJD takes a significant lead.
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Bhubaneswar: On the second day of counting for the Panchayat polls in Odisha on Sunday, the incumbent BJD expanded its lead in the trends.
It led in 329 of the 370 seats, with the BJP in 19, the Congress in 17, and others in 5.
The Congress has already won 263 of the 295 Zilla Parishad (ZP) zones that were proclaimed on Saturday, defeating the BJP in its strongholds of Kalahandi, Balangir, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, and Mayurbhanj.
The saffron party, which astonished everyone by winning 35% of seats in the 2017 rural elections, suffered a huge setback in the first round of counting, garnering only 6% of the 315 Zilla Parishad seats.
In 14 ZP zones, the Congress and the BJP each won.
Notably, the five-phase Panchayat elections completed on February 24 with an overall voter turnout of 78.6%, which was slightly higher than the 78.03 percent recorded in 2017.
