Ahead of election results, BJD and BJP are upbeat in Odisha

Elections in Odisha for the Lok Sabha and the sate assembly were held in four phases beginning on April 13 and ended on April 29.

Almost three weeks after the four-phase polling into the 147 assembly seats and 21 lok Sabha seats of Odisha, the mood is upbeat in both BJP and BJD camps with both sides claiming to be doing well.

Voters show their identity cards as they stand in queues to cast their votes during the second phase of the general elections at a polling station, in Kandhamal district, Odisha, India, April 18, 2019. (HT PHOTO)

Elections in Odisha were held in four phases beginning on April 13 and ended on April 29. Elections for Patkura Assembly seat under Kendrapara parliamentary constituency could not be held after the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agrawal. The Election Commission has fixed May 19 as the new date for polls in Patkura.

The ruling BJD claims it will win anything between 15 and 18 Lok Sabha seats and retain power for the fith consecutive term by winning anything between 90 and 127 assembly seats. The magic number in Odisha Assembly is 74 which senior BJD leaders say would not be difficult to achieve considering the overall popularity of chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

The opposition BJP on the other hand is more upbeat than BJD claiming to win anything between 12 and 16 Lok Sabha seats. In Assembly election, however, the party is not very sanguine of forming government on its own and hopes to get around 50-55 seats.

The Congress which messed up its ticket distribution process leading to mass desertion and rebellion in its ranks, is not confident of winning more than what it won in 2014 polls.

“It’s a very complex election to call. Nationally the popularity of the BJP has gone down, but to what extent it is difficult to know,” said BJD spokesperson Amar Patnaik.

BJP’s national secretary Suresh Pujari however says Odisha would surprise everyone as the support for PM Narendra Modi was unprecedented. “Many pollsters have not been able to gauge the undercurrent for BJP. We would do very well in Lok Sabha and Assembly,” he said.

The battle for Odisha was marked by a high-voltage campaign led by PM Modi who exhorted people to install a double-engine sarkar (euphemism for having BJP government at the Centre and State) while railing against the sloth and inefficiency of the Patnaik government in last 19 years. BJP president Amit Shah too joined in and asked the voters to throw out the BJD government calling Patnaik a “burnt-out transformer”.

Apart from Modi and Shah, several BJP heavyweights such as UP CM Yogi Adityanath, former MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and union textiles minister Smriti Irani fanned out addressing public meetings. Though BJP lacked organisational strength, the overwhelming popularity of Modi and anti-incumbency against Patnaik, mainly among the young electorate, may have helped the party gain ground.

For BJD, Patnaik remained the biggest trump-card in the polls. Battling rumours of ill-health, the 73-year-old Patnaik hopped onto a specially-designed airconditioned bus and went around the State seeking votes. The speeches were woefully brief and invariably ended with his signature line - “Apana mane khushi to, mu bi bahut khushi(Are you happy? I am happy), but Patnaik may have managed to strike a chord with his traditional votebank of women and old people.

BJD also banked largely on the Kalia scheme, a Rs 10000/year cash transfer scheme that has so far benefitted over 32 lakh farmers. As the Election Commission stopped the scheme in April over violation of Model Code of Conduct, a canny Patnaik used the opportunity to allege that the scheme was being torpedoed at the insistence of BJP. To show that he means business, he later announced 25 lakh farmers who are yet to get the assistance under Kalia, would get Rs 10000 the day his government comes to power.

But despite the claims and counter-claims by both the parties, the electorate was largely silent this time though many were in praise of Modi for the airstrike in Balakot. Even in tribal areas, the popularity of Modi was very high as thousands of women and young men flocked to his meetings.

The Congress campaign was lacklustre from the beginning despite Rahul Gandhi’s initial visit to Kalahandi district where he dropped hints about the Nyay scheme. But after the scheme was announced, very few Congress candidate spoke about it. Even Gandhi did not visit Odisha till the fag end when he attended a public meeting in Balasore district. Congress which was a major party in Odisha for 30 years now runs the risk of sliding into oblivion if it performs any worse than 2014 when it won 16 Assembly seats. The party could not win a single Lok Sabha seat in 2014.