Odia pride, Modi popularity behind surge in Odisha

While it delivered a spectacular result in the Odisha assembly elections, attaining a majority on its own, the BJP posted its best ever performance in the Lok Sabha polls from the state as the party won 20 out of 21 seats -- a feat lauded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech at the BJP headquarters which he started with obeisance to Lord Jagannath, the presiding deity of Odias.

Thanking the people of Odisha, Modi said the BJP will leave no stone unturned in fulfilling the dreams of the people and taking Odisha to new heights of progress. “I am very proud of all our hardworking party Karyakartas for their efforts,” he said.

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan won from the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency by 119,000 votes while Sambit Patra won the Puri seat by over 100,000 votes. In the Bargarh Lok Sabha constituency, Pradeep Purohit led by the highest margin of over 250,000 votes against the BJD’s Parinita Mishra. Former Union minister Pratap Sarangi was up against the BJD’s Lekhashree Samantsinghar on the Balasore Lok Sabha seat by over 141,000 votes while the BJP’s national vice-president Baijayant Panda was leading by over 53,000 votes.

In Mayurbhanj, the BJP’s Naba Charan Majhi won by over 200,000 votes against the BJD’s heavyweight leader Sudam Marndi while in the Aska Lok Sabha constituency, the BJD’s pocket borough, the BJP’s Anita Subhadarshini won by over 96,000 votes. The party won from Kandhamal by over 21,000 votes as its candidate Sukanta Panigrahi defeated Achyuta Samanta of the BJD. In contrast, the BJD was leading only in the Jajpur Lok Sabha seat by a slender margin of 4,500-odd votes.

After it shelved its plans for a pre-poll alliance in March this year with the BJD under pressure from its rank and file, the BJP was the first off the blocks as it decided to make Odia Asmita (Odia pride) its main poll plank harping on the meteoric rise of Tamil Nadu-born VK Pandian, the trusted lieutenant of Naveen Patnaik, as the potential successor to the five-time chief minister. Though Patnaik has been high on political acumen reading the public mood better than his opponents, in 2024 his projection of Pandian as his presumptive successor did not go down well with the party rank and file.

The party cadres felt dejected when Pandian, Patnaik’s private secretary for 12 years, was suddenly inducted into the BJD and made the star campaigner of the party. Many of the party leaders were already smarting from being sidelined systematically by Pandian and his coterie of bureaucrats over the last five years and Patnaik allowing Pandian to spearhead the campaign fuelled the BJP’s Odia Asmita campaign as its leaders, starting from Modi to Union home minister Amit Shah, slammed Patnaik for choosing a non-Odia as his successor.

The BJD had money and official machinery at its disposal, but with the party rank and file dispirited and disillusioned, many of its workers simply did not take part in the campaigning as Pandian and his coterie called the shots. Though Patnaik tried to do some damage control towards the end of the campaign saying Pandian was not his successor, it was too late to recover lost ground.

“The anti-incumbency accumulated over the last 24 years and the Odia Asmita factor along with Modi magic completely demolished the BJD. Unlike UP and Maharashtra where Modi was oversold, the PM’s popularity was at its peak and many Odias saw no point in voting for the BJD in Lok Sabha polls,” said political analyst SP Dash. As a result, even a seat like Aska, where Patnaik made his electoral debut in 1998 and then won again in 1999, was lost to the BJP.

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