Odisha politics all set to reach fever-pitch in January next year

Bhubaneswar: Odisha politics is all set to hit fever pitch in January next year as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress have decided to land their top leaders on the ground to canvass for their respective party candidates for the twin Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls.

The BJP and Congress are two major oppositions in the state — both desperately vying for years to unseat the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the campaign on behalf of the BJP while Rahul Gandhi is set to spearhead his party’s electoral battle against the regional outfit.

Both the BJP and Congress have not been able to present a semblance of fight against the maverick Odisha CM who has single handedly vanquished, albeit very ruthlessly, them in successive elections. The BJD’s vote share, as per the 2022 gram panchayat polls, stands at a whopping 52.73 per cent as against 30.07 per cent of BJD and 13.57 per cent of the Congress.

The BJP saw 2.42 per cent drop in its vote share in comparison to its 2019 performance in State Assembly polls. Similarly, the vote share of the Congress vote slipped by 2.55 per cent.

The results of the rural polls in Odisha, which come just two years before the State Assembly elections, are mostly considered as major indicators of the party's strength across the state and in specific zones. Of the total electorates in the state, nearly 80 per cent live in rural areas. Thus, the rural poll results provide political parties an opportunity for self-assessment of their strength, besides prompting them to redesign and redraft their strategies for the general elections.

The BJP, which had set a target of winning 120 of the 147 assembly seats in Odisha in 2019, found itself getting restricted to only 23 seats. Weak organisational infrastructure could not match the ruling party’s well-organised election machinery. The only consolation for the saffron party was that it got 8 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The Congress slumped to 16 seats in the State Assembly in 2015 to nine in 2019. This time, the new Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) has set a target of 90 seats.

“The Congress is seriously preparing the 2024 twin Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls. Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Nyay Yatra’ which will pass through Odisha will help us to strengthen our bond with the voters and we’ll surely win the elections this time and form the next government in the state,” said OPCC campaign committee chairperson Bijay Patnaik.

The BJD has been in power in Odisha since 2000.