The Bharatiya Janata Party has not lost much strength in Odisha despite losing in all the bypolls held in the aftermath of the 2019 general elections. This has been proved with the party retaining the Dhamnagar Assembly seat in the coastal district of Bhadrak, where polling was held on November 3.
The BJP was demoralised when the ruling Biju Janata Dal, headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, snatched away the Balasore Assembly seat from it in the bypoll held exactly two years ago. The saffron party had further lost confidence when it was placed third in the bypoll held in Brajarajnagar Assembly seat in the state's western region in May this year. While the BJD succeeded in retaining the seat, the Congress had emerged second in the race.
The BJP had lost the Balasore Assembly seat to the BJD despite fielding the son of Madan Mohan Dutta, the sitting legislator whose death had necessitated the bypoll. The tables, however, turned in Dhamnagar this time. Suryabanshi Suraj, son of Bishnu Charan Sethi, whose death warranted the bypoll, defeated BJD nominee Abanti Das by 9,881 votes.
Apart from the sympathy factor in favour of its candidate, what made it easier for the saffron party to retain Dhamnagar was that the rebel BJD candidate Rajendra Kumar Das bagged 8,122 votes. Das, who had lost to Sethi in the 2019 elections as BJD candidate, was denied the party ticket at the last minute when the party apparently thought of banking on women voters to win the seat. Infighting among the party leaders at the constituency level was said to be the reason behind the denial of the ticket to Das. That angered his supporters who voted for him, breaking the BJD's bypoll winning cycle. The BJD had not lost any bypoll in the state since it parted company with the BJP before the 2009 general elections.
The Congress also bagged a smaller number of votes than it had got in the 2019 elections with its supporters, who were traditionally opposed to the erstwhile Janata Party, Janata Dal and subsequently the BJD, lending support to the BJP. The Congress candidate bagged only 3,533 votes. The same trend of Congress votes shifting to the BJP was experienced in the 2019 general elections in most parts of Odisha. The approach of the state unit of Congress had also remained anti-BJD in recent years instead of being opposed to both the BJD and BJP with equal vigour. The change in the party's leadership in the state in the recent past seems to have not worked in the party's favour.
As the Dhamnagar seat witnessed a direct contest between the BJP and BJD, both the parties tried their best to woo the voters by engaging their senior leaders in their respective campaigns. With the BJD focussing on women voters, the BJP chose to focus on the youth since they had a young candidate. The BJD candidate who championed the cause of women's self-help groups was the chairman of the Tihidi Block, one of the two blocks under Dhamnagar when she was asked to contest the bypoll.
As usual, the BJD highlighted the state government's achievements under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the BJP leaders, including Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, highlighted the achievements of the Union government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, the BJP's victory has caused embarrassment among the ruling party workers who thought they would win the bypoll on the party symbol no matter who the party's nominee was. The defeat came despite the BJD performing exceptionally well in the panchayat and urban local body polls in the Dhamnagar constituency earlier this year. The party had won all the six Zilla Parishad seats fought on party symbols.
The CM, who sought votes for his party nominee through the virtual mode, was calculative in his reaction to the outcome of the bypoll. The BJP, which held the seat for a number of years, was expected to win since the son of the deceased leader, who was quite popular, was given the ticket, he said.
Although the BJD had won five bypolls – Bijapur, Balasore, Tirtol, Pipili and Brajarajnagar – since 2019, the BJP's win in Dhamnagar has come as a booster shot for the saffron party ahead of another bypoll in Padampur Assembly constituency in Bargarh district in the state's western belt. The polling in Padampur has been scheduled to be held on December 5.
The Padampur bypoll has been necessitated after the death of sitting BJD legislator Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha. The constituency is also set to witness a direct contest between the BJD and BJP since western Odisha is considered the stronghold of the BJP. The BJD may face a tougher challenge in Padampur if the Congress loses its vote share to the saffron party yet again.
The Congress, which had lost the main opposition party status to the BJP in 2019, had bagged over 16 per cent of votes in the Padampur seat in the 2019 polls. The ruling BJD may face a tough time in the 2024 general elections despite the chief minister's popularity remaining intact if the Congress fails to regain strength in Odisha in the coming days.
(The writer is a journalist based in Bhubaneswar)
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)
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