The Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the Dhamnagar assembly by-election, ending the party’s winning streak in Odisha (BJP). With a commanding 9,881 vote lead, the saffron party successfully defended its hold on this seaside seat.
Since the 2019 general elections, when it won a clear majority of 112 members in the 147-member state legislature and returned to power for the fifth consecutive time, this is the BJD’s first loss in a by-election in the state.
Every bye-election held since 2019 has been won by the party, and in the byelection held at the tail end of 2020, it even managed to steal the Balasore Sadar seat from the BJP. Despite losing in Balasore Sadar, the BJP still holds 22 seats in the state’s assembly and continues to hold the title of principal opposition party, which it seized from the Congress in 2019.
Despite the fact that the BJP ran Suryabanshi Suraj, the son of Bishnu Charan Sethi, a former MLA whose passing had forced the byelection, to capitalise on the sympathy factor in Dhamnagar, the majority of BJD leaders remained optimistic about winning the seat due to the Patnaik government’s performance, which served as the party’s election-winning trump card. Even after it was announced that former BJD MLA Rajendra Das will run as an independent in the Dhamnagar election, it made little difference to them.
The party’s overconfidence ultimately proved to be its downfall, as the rebel not only managed to garner more than 8,000 votes but also negatively impacted Abanti Das, the party’s official candidate and the leader of a women’s self-help group (SHG), in other ways.
The defeat also demonstrated that BJD’s overreliance on the women’s empowerment angle might occasionally backfire. The party, which has been pushing for 33% female representation in state legislatures and the parliament, fielded a number of women in the 2019 elections as well as a woman in the June byelection for the Brajrajnagar assembly.
Political observers, however, contend that while the chief minister has been successful in gaining women’s support for the BJD by championing women’s issues, he can only get the best outcomes if the candidates he chooses are the finest ones.
“The candidate selection must be accurate and justified. Simply running a woman won’t help you win an election. She ought to be able to connect with the voters. Evidently, this wasn’t the case at Dhamnagar. The BJD believed that the chief minister’s support for women and popularity would be enough to carry its candidate to victory. Shashi Kant Mishra, a political expert, noted that this did not take place.
The BJP, on the other hand, not only made the best choice in terms of its candidate, but also in terms of how it managed its election campaign, emphasising the work that former MLA Bishnu Charan Sethy had done for the area and assuring the electorate that his son Suryabanshi Suraj would be a worthy successor to his father.
The BJP knew only too well that it could not afford another loss in Dhamanagar, which would have completely demoralised its cadre ahead of the 2024 general elections, after losing the Balasore Sadar seat to the BJD in a byelection in 2020. Because Dharmendra Pradhan, the party’s face in the state, led the campaign from the front, the party invested everything into it. Biseshwar Tudu, a minister of state for Jal Shakti in the Union, also promoted the party candidate.
We performed flawlessly in Dhamnagar. Our campaign was well-coordinated with prominent leaders like Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan leading from the front, and our candidate and plan were both strong. The myth of Naveen Patnaik’s invincibility has been dispelled by our triumph. People have told us that if we work hard, we can defeat the BJD, according to state BJP general secretary Bhrigu Buxipatra.
BJP’s continual ascent
While the Dhamanagar result will undoubtedly bolster BJP supporters’ spirits, the party has been steadily gaining ground in the state. In Odisha, the BJP supported the BJD for 11 years, sharing power with it for around nine of those. Following the breakdown of the partnership prior to the 2009 assembly elections, it entered a downward spiral.
The BJD was able to create a government in the state on its own strength after the elections, while the BJP only managed to gain six seats. Its total increased to 10 in the 2014 elections, while the BJD got 117 members and the Congress continued to hold the majority with 16 seats.
But the Odisha election of 2019 marked a turning point for the BJP. The party won 23 seats in the state assembly and, for the first time, took the lead as the primary opposition party in the state by capitalising on Congress’s steady slide in the state.
The Congress was only able to get nine members, leaving the BJD in the driver’s seat with up to 112 seats. As the lotus (BJP) sprouted in various constituencies, the Congress was for the first time demoted to third place in Odisha. The BJP won a few seats in coastal and northern Odisha, particularly in the Mayurbhanj district, but its power was remained mostly limited to western Odisha, its traditional heartland. In addition, the party made huge gains in the concurrent Lok Sabha elections, taking eight of the 21 available seats, up from just one in 2014.
Additionally, the BJP performed strongly in the state’s 2017 panchayat elections, capturing 297 Zila Parishad seats, up from the 36 it had won in 2012. The party mostly profited from the Congress’s fall in popularity, which saw its Zila Parishad total drop from 126 in 2012 to only 60 in 2017. However, the BJP was unable to hold onto its lead in the panchayat elections earlier this year, and its overall ZP tally dropped to 42. Nevertheless, despite the Congress capturing just 37 ZP seats, it nevertheless managed to overtake them and move them into third place.
Election campaigns in Odisha are now essentially bipolar, with the BJD and BJP vying for political dominance, as a result of the Congress’s precipitous decline in popularity over the years. Rather than being a credible contender for power, Congress has merely run candidates to demonstrate its participation in elections as a national party.
This is in line with the BJP’s strategy to progressively strengthen itself while searching for a weak spot in chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s defence. It has been focusing on Patnaik’s modes of operation and his development model, particularly his attempt to attract widespread support through populist programmes like grains for Rs 1 per kg and meals for the urban poor for Rs 5.
The BJD is the target of two separate campaigns by the party. While pointing out that the rice being distributed to the poor was heavily subsidised by the Union government, it criticises the ruling party for trying to claim sole credit for the affordable rice programme. It also criticises the chief minister for making people reliant on government handouts in the name of eradicating poverty.
“The BJD has long engaged in the practise of free-rider politics. It has tried to tempt people in various ways in the name of reducing poverty, offering dinners for Rs 5 or rice for Rs 1 to the impoverished in metropolitan areas. The level of living of individuals has not improved or really advanced as a result, nevertheless. According to BJP state general secretary Bhrigu Buxipatra, people are gradually realising this and rejecting the BJD’s developmental approach, which attempts to make people dependent on the government rather than self-sufficient.
Although BJD leaders continue to insist that despite the loss in Dhamnagar, people still have faith in chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s developmental projects, there does appear to be some validity to the claim.
Prasanta Patnaik