Pipili Assembly By-Poll Confirm on April 17th
Bureau,Odishabarta
Bhubaneswar: The by-election to Pipili Assembly constituency will be held on April 17, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
Chief Electoral Office sources here said a gazette notification for the byelection will be issued on March 23 and nominations will be filed from March 23 to 30. The scrutiny of nominations will be held on March 31.
The last date for withdrawal of nomination is April 3. The counting will be held on May 2 and the result will be declared on the same day.
The bypoll has been necessitated following the demise BJD MLA Pradeep Maharathy (65) on October 4 last year. Sources in the BJD said the party might field his wife or son from the seat.
Meanwhile, major political parties in the State on Tuesday said they are well-prepared for the contest. BJD vice-president Debiprasad Mishra exuded confidence that his party would win the by-election. “Pipili has always been a stronghold of the BJD. There is no doubt that we will win the seat. We are ready for the contest,” he said.
Rebuffing the ruling party’s assertion, former minister and senior Congress MLA Suresh Routray said people are unhappy with the work undertaken by the ruling party in the constituency. “People want the Congress to return to Pipili. The constituency was once a Congress fortress. Our party will easily bag the seat this time,” Routray said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also exuded confidence of winning the seat in the wake of good performance in a rural local body poll in the constituency. “Recently, we won a sarpanch election in Pipili, which shows that the people have reposed faith in us. We will definitely win the bypoll,” said BJP MLA Mohan Charan Majhi.
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