In Odisha, the Narendra Modi wave was overwhelmingly subdued and the exit polls were proved largely wrong by a Naveen Patnaik storm as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won hands down both in the Parliamentary and Assembly elections.
In fact, it was Patnaik’s most glorious ride to power in the State for this fourth consecutive term, which is also historic as no other Chief Minister had retained his regime for such a long period.
Naveen, through his innovative developmental programmes, populist schemes, leadership quality and charisma, proved that he is the most popular leader in the State, even surpassing his legendary father and former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik, who had to crawl to thrive in politics. The omissions and commissions and alleged scams did not come in the way of his success.
Patnaik rode on his simmering wave to gobble up 116 seats in the Assembly and 20 of the 21 lok Sabha seats. While the BJD became the number one party with over two-thirds majority in the Assembly, it has got the rare honour as the fourth largest party in the lok Sabha.
True to his words, Naveen has shown the Congress and BJP their place in the State. While the Congress failed to retain its earlier number 27 and was 10 short of its last tally this time, the BJP, whose leaders were boasting of playing a decisive role in formation of Government in the State, however managed to increase its tally to 11, only five more than its seat position in the 2009. It had to remain satisfied with only one lok Sabha seat.
While during the 2009 general elections, the BJD under Patnaik had won in 103 Assembly seats, besides the five seats own by the allies - NCP and CPI, in 2014 polls, it surpassed the figure even without any pre-or-post poll alliance.Earlier, Janaki Ballav Patnaik was the lone leader who had become the Chief Minister of the State for three terms, but not at a stretch. But Naveen Patnaik has remained popular even after 14 years of rule comprising three consecutive terms.
So far as the newly floated parties are concerned, they could not play any role in denting the BJD votes. Except the Samata Kranti Dal (SKD), all others faced humiliating defeats, be it OJM, Ama Odisha,Utkal Bharat or Samrudha Odisha. SKD’s George Tirkey won from Biramitrapur Assembly seat.The prominent BJD leaders who won the elections include Speaker of State Assembly Pradip Kumar Amat, Deputy Speaker Sananda Marndi, Health and Family
Welfare Minister Dr Damodar Rout, Revenue Minister Surya Narayan Patro, Rural Development Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh, Chhatra BJD chief Byomakesh Ray, Forest Minister Bijoy Shree Routray, and former BJP Minister Golak Nayak who had switched over to the BJD at the last moment.
All the Council of Ministers except Rabi Narayan Nanda came out victorious. Former JMM State president Sudam Marandi also won the election as BJD candidate from Bangiriposi. All the sitting lok Sabha members also got through well this time. At the same time, while BJD Rajya Sabha members Rabinarayan Mohapatra and Sashi Bhushan Behera came out with flying colours, Dillip Tirkey was in a leading position from the Sundergarh lS seat.
Despite severe jolt to the Congress, some prominent members came out victorious. Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra defeated former Minister and BJD vice-president AU Singh Deo in Bolangir Assembly seat. Singh Deo got shock of a double defeat; first he had to lose the Rajya Sabha seat despite his winning in last biennial polls and now in the came in the form of the current defeat as a contestant from the Balangir Assembly seat. Senior Congress leader and former MlA Taraprasad Bahinipati won the Jeypur seat by defeating Rabinaryan Nanda in a nail-biting contest and Subal Sahoo proved himself as the giant killer by defeating State Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya.