At the end of the three-tier panchayat elections on Tuesday, the BJP claimed that it would form Zilla Parishads in eight to ten districts out of the 30 in the State.
In fact, the ruling BJD was reduced to 13 districts against its tally of 28 in the 2012 elections. The BJD’s losses were the BJP’s gains.
Of the total 854 ZP seats, the BJP has won over 310 compared to the BJD’s 450 and the Congress’ 55 while the remaining seats are occupied by others. The results are unofficial.
During the 2012 rural polls, the BJD had grabbed 651 ZP seats while the Congress was in the second position winning in 128 seats while the BJP managed to get 36. The BJD had formed ZP councils in 28 districts while the Congress was confined to only two districts, Kandhamal and Jharsuguda and the BJP had none.
“The Odisha results show that the Congress is no longer a major player in the State. Odisha is already Congress-Mukt (Congress-free). We will be in power in eight to 10 district bodies out of the total 30. It is an unprecedented performance for the BJP,” BJP national general secretary and State in-charge Arun Singh told reporters in New Delhi.
The BJP has made a clean sweep in the tribal regions of Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj and Malkangiri, which were traditional Congress strongholds, and also in Sambalpur, Baleswar, the BJD strongholds, and Bargarh, Balangir and Deogarh this time.
Till the time of filing this report, the BJP had bagged 54 Zilla Parishad (ZP) seats while the BJD got 55, the Congress six and others four.
A total of 150 ZP seats went for polls in the final round of the elections.