Odisha panchayat polls: BJD leading in 249 Zilla Parishad seats

Bhubaneswar: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was leading in 249 Zilla Parishad Zones (ZPZ) seats while BJP candidates are ahead in 30 and Congress in 13 as per early trends of Odisha panchayat polls, officials said on Saturday.

The counting of votes for 315 Zilla Parishad Zone seats began at 8 am in different block headquarters on Saturday, reported PTI.

Trends are available for 299 Zilla Parishad seats with BJD ahead in 249 seats, BJP in 32, Congress in 13, they said.

The counting for the remaining 307 ZP zone seats will be done on February 27 and 229 Zilla Parishad zone seats on February 29, they said.

The counting of votes will be done for three days from Saturday. The polling was held in five different phases on February 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24.

The overall voter turnout was 78.6 per cent this time, slightly better than the 78.03 per cent in 2017.