BJD repeats Odisha sweep, as it inflicts another washout on Oppn in rural polls

After two days of counting of votes that got underway on February 26, the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD bagged over 90 per cent of ZPZ seats, winning 585 seats with the BJP and Congress managing to secure only 31 and 29 seats, respectively. On the final day of counting on February 28 for the remaining 231 ZPZ seats, the BJD has established a commanding lead in 190 ZPZ seats as against the BJP’s 15 and and the Congress’s 6.

These results and trends reflected, yet again, the lack of any anti-incumbency against the Patnaik government in the state even after 22 years of the BJD’s continuous rule. In the 2017 panchayat polls, the BJD had won 473 ZPZ seats, the BJP 297 and the Congress 60.

The BJD’s groundwork for the current rural polls was launched on a war-footing in October last year when Chief Minister Patnaik himself visited multiple districts, especially in western Odisha, to distribute smart health cards, announce various assistance schemes related to Covid and house repair, and inaugurate a slew of development projects.

In the run-up to the panchayat elections, while the BJD top brass including Patnaik stayed away from the campaign trails, many party leaders including MLAs were entrusted with electioneering and with boosting the party’s electoral prospects from the ground.

“We knew what areas we had to focus on. Even our organisational secretary emphasised specifically on those districts where our performance was not sound in 2017 and subsequent elections. Party restructuring happened and every member was told that the task at hand was proper implementation of all government welfare schemes being announced. I think that worked because the party continues to be pro-people,” BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said.

One of the major highlights of the panchayat polls is the BJD’s remarkable success in western districts including Kalahandi, Bargarh, Balangir, Deogarh, Sambalpur besides the northern districts of Sundargarh and Mayurbhanj, where the principal Opposition BJP had made strong inroads in the 2017 rural elections and the 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

In 2017 rural polls, the BJP had won 169 out of the total 212 ZPZ seats in eight western districts – Balangir, Bargarh, Deogarh, Boudh Kalahandi, Jharsuguda, Nuapada, Sonepur and Sambalpur – when the BJD had managed to get only 33 seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won all four Lok Sabha seats in the western region, including Bargarh, Sambalpur, Balangir and Kalahandi, although in the then Assembly polls, the BJD had got 17 of the 24 seats in the region as against 3 seats each won by the BJP and the Congress.

Despite the BJP’s protest campigns over the Mamita Meher murder case as well as over issues like women safety, token system for selling rice and housing schemes, the party failed to make any dent in the BJD’s poll prospects.

“The results are beyond our own expectations but the people of Odisha have continued to repose their trust in us, and it will remain unshaken despite all the attempts by the Opposition to rake up issues when they do not exist,” senior BJD leader Subhash Singh said.

For the BJP, however, the outcome has raised questions about its state leadership. “It is important to continue a winning streak. If you fail to do so, your win once upon a time will be judged as ‘luck by chance’. No top leaders cared to campaign despite knowing how important these elections are for the party. After a preliminary round of visits in selected few districts, the MPs were indifferent to the elections. The party was supposed to work harder especially after failing in by-elections held in the last two years, including in one of our sitting seats,” a senior BJP state functionary said.

“BJD has always had roots here in Odisha. BJP is a national party and important decisions on leadership issues have to be taken by the central  leadership. The party insisted more on what the BJD could not do instead of apprising the masses about what the BJP could do for them or what the central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been doing. The party has definitely failed  to communicate the success stories of the central government to the people,” senior BJP leader and ex-MP Kharavel Swain said.

In Mayurbhanj district adjoining West Bengal, where the BJP had won 49 of 56 ZPZ seats in the 2017 panchayat polls and 6 of 9 Assembly seats and the parliamentary seat in the 2019 polls, the party managed to win only one ZPZ seat this time.

Union Minister Bishweswar Tudu, who was entrusted by the BJP with managing the organisational work in Mayurbhanj, told The Indian Express, “It would have been okay if our seat share had dipped a little as compared to 2017, but our performance has turned out to be dismal definitely. But we have our own doubts over the polling process. There have been a lot of instances of rigging and discrepancies during the voting and we will look into those.”

When asked for his reaction, Odisha BJP president Samir Mohanty said, “The party will deliberate upon the results and on the exact reasons that led to these results.”

The Congress party, which has been on the margins of Odisha politics since 2017, managed to retain some pockets of its traditional strongholds in Southern Odisha, including in Rayagada, Malkangiri, Nabrangpur and Gajapati, as it managed to clinch about 50 per cent of the 60 ZPZ seats it had won there in the previous polls.

Congress leaders claimed that the party “fared well” despite a weaker organisation as compared to the BJD and the BJP. “If the party had more resources and an effective election management machinery, the results would have been way much better. There were speculations that the Congress voters will drift towards either the BJP or the BJD, but they have continued to stay with us, which is important for us. It is a ray of hope for the state party unit,” senior party leader Panchanan Kanungo said.