Bhubaneswar:
Unhappy over the “not upto expectation” performance by party candidates in Lok Sabha polls in Odisha, chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik Monday held consultation with various stake-holders to ascertain reasons, party sources said.
Patnaik met defeated candidates, district presidents and senior leaders and wanted to know as to why BJD candidates lost the Lok Sabha seats despite retaining most segments in Assembly elections held simultaneously.
While BJD won 112 seats in the 147 member state Assembly, the regional party candidates could bag 12 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats. In 2014 elections, the BJD had captured 20 Lok Sabha seats while the BJP had won only one.
This time the BJP won eight Lok Sabha seats while the Congress got one.
The BJD candidates lost in Bargarh, Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Bolangir, Sambalpur, Kalahandi, Koraput and Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seats.
What has come as a surprise for the BJD is that its Lok Sabha candidates lost even as party’s assembly nominees won in most of the seats under these Parliamentary constituencies.
For instance, Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat which was a strong hold of BJD, party candidate Arup Mohan Patnaik lost the polls to BJP’s Aparajita Sarangi by 23,839 votes.
The BJD’s assembly candidates, on the other hand, won in six of the seven assembly segments under Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat. The BJD candidates won in Bhubaneswar-North, Bhubaneswar-Central, Ekamra-Bhubaneswar, Khurda, Jaydev and Begunia segment while Congress candidate won in Jatni.
“We are surprised as to how our Lok Sabha candidate lost though party nominees won in six assembly segments. It could be either due to split voting or some kind of sabotage,” said a senior leader after meeting Patnaik.
BJD candidate Sunita Biswal, who lost in the Sundergarh Lok Sabha seat said: “I could not get sufficient time for campaigning. As I contested for the first time, I might have committed some mistake.” She, however, said that a thorough review is required.”
Similar was the case in Bargarh Lok Sabha seat. The BJD candidates won in all the seven assembly segment, but the party candidate lost in the Lok Sabha polls.
In Koraput Lok Sabha seat, the BJD candidates won in 5 Assembly segments while one each went in favour of an Independent and Congress. BJD candidate Kausalya Hikaka lost the polls by a slender margin of only 3,613 votes to Congress’s Saptagiriu Ullaka.
The BJD voter share in the Lok Sabha polls witnessed a decline. While the regional party candidates had secured 44.77 per cent votes in 2014 elections, the ratio came down to 42.8 per cent in 2019. The BJP on the other hand increased its vote share to 38.4 per cent from 21.88 per cent.
The BJD leadership, which is apparently worried over sharp increase in BJP’s vote share, is analysing the voting pattern threadbare in order to take necessary measures to check the saffron surge, sources said.
