Poll card Odisha: BJP aims to challenge Naveen Patnaik’s iron grip

There is a lot of attention on Odisha this time as there was a buzz before polls that former allies and top parties of the state — Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the BJP — may come together but now they are ghting to outscore each other.

Elections for 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly seats of Odisha will be held simultaneously over four phases starting from May 13.

ET takes a look at factors playing out in the state: In 2019, BJP emerged as the main challenger to BJD and won eight Lok Sabha seats. However, in the assembly polls, it was Naveen Patnaik all the way, showing that Odiyas have different preferences for different polls. In between these two players, Congress is trying hard to make space for itself.


Different regions of Odisha
Politically, Odisha can be broadly divided into two regions — Coastal Odisha and Western Odisha. Besides these two, there are two sub-regions of tribal population in the northern and southern part of the state.

Coastal Odisha has been a pocket borough of BJD. Out of the 147 assembly seats, around 90 are in the coastal region comprising Lok Sabha segments – Berhampur, Kendra Para, Aska, Bhubaneswar, Puri, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagastsinghpur. Patnaik contests from Ganjam district which falls in the coastal region

Western Odisha is the base of RSS and BJP. Sambalpur, Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Bargarh and a few other LS constituencies come under this region. In the northern tribal region with Lok Sabha segments such as Sundargarh and Kenojhar — all ST reserved seats — BJP has a strong presence. The BJP made inroads in these regions when it was in alliance with JMM. In the southern tribal region – Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Koraput and Nabarangpur — BJD enjoys a large following. This region was plagued by severe poverty in Kalahandi, Naxalism in Nabarangpur and riots in Kandhamal but now the change here is presented as Patnaik government’s success story with its inclusive development agenda.

Key contests
Berhampur: It’s a battle of turncoats where both BJP and BJD have fielded candidates against each other’s dissidents, making the election interesting. BJP’s candidate Pradeep Panigrahy, former aide of Odisha CM, will be fighting BJD candidate Bhrugu Baxipatra, who was BJP’s vice-president of the Odisha unit.

Kendrapara: This seat was once held by Biju Patnaik, former CM of Odisha and current CM as well. When Naveen Patnail moved to Ganjam, he made his father’s friend Bansidhar Panda’s son Baijayant Panda to contest from here. Baijayant won the seat but after falling out with Patnaik, he lost the seat. This time he is contesting on a BJP ticket against BJD’s Anubhav Mohanty.

Sambalpur: The seat will see a clash between BJP’s Pradhan and BJD’s secretary (Organisation) Pranab Prakash ‘Bobby’ Das who controls the entire cadre network of his party. Pradhan is among prominent faces of BJP and is also an OBC, the majority caste in this Lok Sabha seat.

Parties and Personalities
Patnaik’s BJD has been a dominant player of state politics for over two decades. Of the 4.5 crore population of Odisha, BJD has a membership of over 1 crore with a dedicated cadre.

Fondly called as Naveen Babu, Patnaik is the second longest serving CM in India. It is his charisma, his government’s policies of welfare and women empowerment which has driven the party’s successful run since 1997.

His government presents poverty alleviation and disaster management among its major achievements. Social appeal and goodwill of the second longest serving CM is unparalleled and no leader from Odisha can match it.

However, the aging leader’s no clear succession plan and BJP’s continuous attacks on his lieutenants is making it a contest between Odiyas versus outsiders in an election with several dissidents switching over to BJP.

For BJP, PM Modi’s popularity and RSS’ ground network are its two biggest strengths. The Modi wave in 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw the party’s vote share exceeding by 38%. But the BJP could not repeat the same performance in assembly polls.

On the rise after the 2019 LS polls, BJP emerged as the main challenger to BJD. And Modi is its biggest vote catcher in the state. The party has several prominent regional faces as well, including Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, tribal leader Jual Oram, Sambit Patra and Baijayant Panda, among others.

The party has a strong cadre presence in Western Odisha and has made Odiya pride or Kalinga pride an election issue by continuously attacking Patnaik’s close aide and retired IAS officer VK Pandian who is considered to be an “outsider”. However, BJP lacks a strong cadre base across the state and has no match for Patnaik’s charisma in state politics.