Hijacked. That is how the outcome of the Odisha elections could be explained.
The Election 2024 threw up strange results in Odisha. The BJP came to power in the State brining an end to the long uninterrupted 24-year rule of Naveen Patnaik.
Strangely, though the mandate was for the ruling Biju Janata Dal, the BJP emerged as victorious. The BJD, notwithstanding its higher vote share compared to BJP, failed to retain power. The Team Modi hijacked the mandate.
Certainly, the election results shocked the ruling BJD, left bewildered the State BJP leaders, and turned the voters skeptic. The BJD, with its strong party organization, money and muscle power, government machinery at its back, and, of course, the popularity of its supremo Naveen Patnaik was not expecting a defeat in its worst nightmare. The party which got 51 seats, 23 short of the magic number of 74, saw the power was snatched away from it by the saffron brigade. The Odisha BJP, which entered into the poll battle with a tattered outfit and divided leadership, is pondering how the victory came. And, the voters are confused about the outcome of their franchise. They were asking themselves whether they had voted in favour of such a mandate.
Worst, for BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik the defeat came when he was poised to set a new record in Indian political history by having sixth term in the office of chief minister consecutively piping Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim. Given the BJD’s vote share and the social media narratives about the popularity of Naveen Patnaik, it is difficult to comprehend the defeat of the party.
The BJD is itself to be blamed for its defeat. And, for the BJP’s victory the credit goes to the Modi’s Central Election Machinery.
Is the defeat of BJD is self-inflicted. That is what believe many in Odisha.
Three pre-poll incidents, apparently, set the tone for the debacle of BJD.
Party’s complexity in spoiling the daughter’s marriage schedule of Pradip Panigrahi, once a close aide of Naveen Patnaik and senior party leader, did not go well with the people of the State and Ganjam district in particular. Panigrahi switched over to BJP and became its MP candidate for Berhampur Lok Sabha seat. BJP not only snatched the Lok Sabha seat from BJD but also swept 11 of the 13 assembly seats in the Ganjam district once considered to be a forte of BJD.
Then came the Economic Offence Wing (EoW) raid on Sambad media group helmed by party MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik. The EoW sleuths haunted Patnaik. It is widely believed the action was at the behest of the ruling party for writing editorial criticizing the bureaucratic dominance in governance. The tragedy Patnaik, a pan Odisha popular figure, moved many in the State.
Interestingly, the withdrawal of candidature of Srimoyee Mishra from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat by the party after allowing her to campaign for three months created an emotional upheaval among women across the State in general and in Bhubaneswar constituency in particular.
The three incident actually brought the Odia pride into the focus which later became the major poll plank of the BJP in the run up to the hustings. The narrative of Pradip Panigrahi and the front-page editorials by Soumya Ranjan Patnaik whipping up the Odia sentiment by attacking VK Pandian, an IAS officer of Tamil Nadu origin becoming a the blue eyed boy of Naveen Patnaik. Srimayees’s sudden disappearance from the electioneering also got a narrative that she became the victim of the coterie of the non-Odia IAS officers.
The three victims drew enoromous sympathy from across the State. Panigrahi, after his dismissal from party became a social media hit. Soumya Ranjan’s resignation from the editorship following the EoW raid, his dismissal from the party and his subsequent absence from the public space made him hero of Greek tragedy. Srimoyee’s disappearance caused lot of anxiety among voters of Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency who searched for her frantically in the social media making her more sought after leader in the State. This was second time she was ditched by the party. In 2019, she was asked to groom Patnagarh assembly constituency and at the time of filing the nomination she was asked to withdraw from the campaign.
The party’s image as a regional party dented as it failed to take a position vis-à-vis the main opposition in Odisha, the BJP which is a national party. It remained prevaricate all through the last five years term when it came to the relationship with the BJP Central leadership. Then came the fortnight-long BJP-BJD alliance talks which completely demoralized the party cadres.
Even when the alliance talks failed, the party remained subdued in its attack on BJP.
The BJD, in fact, lost half the battle when it mishandled the media. Curiously, almost the entire State media, both print and electronic, and even social media , turned hostile to it despite liberal release of government and party advertisements.
The selection of candidates also raised many an eye brow in the political circle in the State. It is widely believed that the party gave a walkover to the BJP so far as the elections to the Lok Sabha was concerned. It fielded new faces and imported leaders against formidable candidates of BJP in almost all the Lok Sabha constituencies. Allowing party’s general secretary Pranab Prakash Das to contest from Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat against BJP’s union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and nominating Lekhashree Samantray, a BJP leader known for her vituperative railing of Naveen Patnaik, from Balasore Lok Sabha seat still remain a mystery. It is believed that CAG Grirish Murmu had put a word for Lekhashree, wife of an officer Indian Audit & Account Services, when she could not be accommodated in the BJP list.
The selection of candidates for assembly seats too is not above suspicion. At a time when the Western Odisha regional feeling was at its high, Naveen Patnaik contesting from Kantabanji in Bolangir district proved imprudent. Fielding film actress Barsha Priyadarshini denying ticket to the local veteran leader Amar Satpathy cost the seat to the party. Denying ticket to school and mass education minister and veteran MLA Sameer Dash cost the party the Nimapada seat. BJD lost many seats to party rebels who contested either as BJP candidates or as an independent.
Many veteran MLAs like Debi Mishra, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Bikram Arakhu lost the elections as they took it casually.
The party remained overconfident all through the campaign. It didn’t feel the necessity to counter the BJP’s poll narratives. When BJP raised the issue of Odia pride aiming at VK Pandian’s rise in the party structure, failed to explain its position. The narrative that Pandian, an IAS officer turned politician who hails from Tamil Nadu, would be the chief minister soon as Naveen Patnaik was not keeping good health caught the imagination of the Odia voters. Pandian’s whirlwind electioneering only added grist to the rumor mill. It was BJD’s poll consultant, hired from Delhi, ill -advised Pandian to plunge into the campaign trail.
Similarly, the party failed to counter the BJP’s attack on issues like the missing of the Puri Sri Jagannath Ratna Bhandar key, and opening of four gates of Puri Temple. Many of the allegations made in the BJP’s charge sheet such as selling power to Tamil Nadu at a cheaper price than available to Odisha people, mining scam and chit fund scam remained unanswered.
On the otherhand, BJD’s narratives did not catch up the imagination of the voters as the media remained hostile to it. Issues like Centre’s neglect, delay in construction of Angul-Sambalpur National Highway could not sustain for long.
The party failed to built up a strategy to counter the electioneering by the BJP Central leadership and BJP chief ministers in dozens. It failed to parade its star campaigners to negate the narratives of the visiting leaders like UP chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. There was almost carpet bombing by the Central BJP leaders in the State.
VK Pandian has admitted that the party failed to counter the BJP narratives at right times. “We failed to counter their narratives in time,” he said in his video message announcing his resignation from the party.
While there was chaos in BJD’s poll management, the BJP engaged its Central Poll Machinery in full steam in Odisha. The aim was to bag as many Lok Sabha seat as possible from the State to compensate the shortfall from other States.
The Modi Election Machinery took charge of Odisha in May soon after two phases of elections in the country was over. The Modi poll team in coordination with Odisha in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and Rajyasabha MP Aswini Vaisnav worked out an independent strategy as it realized that the party’s State organization is not in shambles and the leadership is a divided house. The Team paraded top Central leaders like Modi, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, V. Jaishankar, Smruti Irani, Hema Malini, and chief minister and deputy chief minister of various BJP ruled States. In the ground level it engaged thousands of party karyakarta from Chhattishgar, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. The karyakartas under the leadership of their respective chief minister, deputy chief minister, minister and MLAs and under the guidance of the Central Team launched door to door campaign with Modi gurantee card. Subhadra Yojana promising Rs 50,000 voucher for women, paddy procurement at Rs 3100 played well among the electorate.
The Modi poll team adopted the same tactic that it successfully applied in recently held assembly elections in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh. This time the team focused on Lok Sabha seats and bagged vote in the name of Modi. In Odisha, since Modi continued to be popular, although the popularity has slid since 2019 elections, the strategy clicked. Party made a clean sweep winning 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.
“The BJP’s Central Poll Machineary is phenomenal,” said Rabi Das, a senior journalist who has watched elections in Odisha since 1970s.
Many of the victorious BJP MP candidates, who had not fought the election seriously, are now catching up with the reality –the Modi Magic
Given the BJP’s striking rate in the Lok Sabha elections, the party should have won 90-100 seats in the Assembly. But it got only four seats above the magical number of 74. Several BJP MLA candidates, in fact, got through as a corollary effect of the Modi team campaign for MP seats.
No doubt if the BJP is able to come to power in Odisha dethroning the 24-year old BJD Government, then the credit goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team.
The BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, who is now the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly admits that the Modic Magic played a role in the defeat of his party. “ The BJD faced the electoral debacle because of the Modi wave”, he told the party MLAs who were in a meeting to elect the leader of the BJD Legislative Party who would become the Leader of the Opposition in the House.
Since the victory of BJP in Odisha is a handiwork of Modi Poll Team, and there was very little contribution by the State leaders, there was no tussle among the group leaders for chief minister post in the State. The Prime Minister Modi got a freehand to pick the chief minister candidate. While a tribal leader not involved in the internal groupism, Mohan Charan Majhi, has been made chief minister, a veteran MLA, sixth timer KV Singhdeo, and a first timer but senior woman leader have been made deputy chief ministers. In the ministry formation, balancing the various groups has been taken into consideration.
The number of votes was not reflecting in seat numbers. The striking rate in Lok Sabha elections fails to commensurate with the assembly seat though elections held simultaneously for both Lok Sabha and State Assembly. This queer phenomenon of 2024 Elections in Odisha, certainly requires an empirical study by the pollsters.
By Dilip Kumar Bisoi
(The content of this article reflects the views of writers and contributors, not necessarily those of the publisher and editor. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only)
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