The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has set its target to maintain ascendancy in five parliamentary seats going to polls on 20 May in the second phase of ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the coastal State with the Biju Janata Dal going all out to give the saffron party a tough fight.
The voters in parliamentary constituencies of Aska, Kandhamal, Balangir, Bargarh and Sundargarh will exercise their democratic rights by casting votes on Monday. And the poll battle, as analysts say, will be fiercely competitive and is likely to become a bipolar contest with anticipation of Congress relegated to distant third looming large.
The BJD had won Aska and Kandhamal LS seats while the BJP had defeated the regional party winning the remaining three- Bolangir, Bargarh and Sundargarh LS seats in 2019.
Naveen Patnaik-led BJD notched up 42.8 per cent of the total votes polled in the 2019 parliamentary polls while in 2014 its vote share stood at 44.1per cent. The BJD which had bagged 20 out of the 21 LS seats in 2014 managed to retain 12 seats. On the other hand, BJP’s votes in 2019 LS polls were marked by steady rise from 21.5 per cent in 2014 to 38.4 per cent in 2019.
The saffron party made an eight-fold increase in terms of seats in 2019 while bagging 8 Lok Sabha seats. It had remained content with one seat only in 2014.
The Indian National Congress, once a powerhouse in Odisha politics, had hit rock bottom with humiliating drubbing at the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, bagging one seat only. The Congress candidates had lost security deposits in Bargarh, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jajpur and Puri Lok Sabha constituencies last time. The Congress’s LS candidates could manage to bag 16.12per cent votes in 2019 while the vote percentage was 25.71per cent in 2014 LS elections. As against 95.35 lakh votes in 2014, it struggled to get 35.75 lakh votes in 2019 polls.
The prominent contestants in the fray for second phase of LS polls on Monday include former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, former Indian hockey captain Dillip Tirkey and BJP’s four-time Lok Sabha Sangeeta Singh Deo.
Besides, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and former union minister Dilip Ray are contesting 20 May Assembly polls.
According to poll rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 40 candidates are contesting from five parliamentary seats while 265 candidates are trying out their electoral luck for 35 assembly seats.
Sensing distinct poll victory possibility, the BJP had embarked on a high-octane poll campaign for the second phase LS and Assembly polls lining up top heavyweights including PM Narendra Modi, National president JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and host of other national leaders sitting chief ministers of BJP-ruled States.
On the other hand, BJD, apparently hit by anti-incumbency after remaining in power for 24 years is fighting the toughest election ever since the regional party was founded in the late nineties after the demise of legendary Biju Patnaik. Then, the State was a Congress bastion and an anti-Congress outfit named after Late Biju Babu was formed to spoil the grand old party’s grip over the voters.
The BJD’s campaign is headed by CM Naveen Patnaik and his trusted aide VK Pandian, who is being groomed by Patnaik as his political successor.
The grooming of Tamil Nadu-born former bureaucrat-turned-politician has provided ammunition to the BJP in raking up the Odia ashmita or pride card. The regional party is often being found on a defensive mode as the BJP has fired all cylinders in leveling allegations of the outsourced government run by Pandian at poll rallies. Right from PM Modi to State’s top leaders,the BJP has played Odia pride plank as a potential hilt to oust BJD from power in Odisha. The BJD however, refuted the charge and banked on Naveen’s popularity and charisma to script yet another poll victory as it has been doing since 2000.
The Congress on the other hand lags behind in campaign trail despite the rallies by Rahul Gandhi, President Mallikarjun Kharge. The grand-old-party has raked up the anti-people policies of both the BJP at the Centre and the BJD at the State by describing both the parties as two sides of a coin for pre-poll alliance bid on their part. The party think-tank hopes that the anti-incumbency of both BJD and BJP will emerge as an advantage for the Congress as people seek for an alternative.