NOT only is Naveen Patnaik set to take over as Orissa chief minister for the fourth time, the 67-year-old is doing so after having decimated the opposition, particularly the Congress. The BJD got 43.4 per cent or 9.3 million votes of the total votes polled in the state to win 117 of the 147 Assembly seats. This is its highest tally and highest vote share since its inception in 1997. The Congress’s 16 seats, on the other hand, marked a new low. It won just 5.5 million votes, or 25.7 per cent of the total polled. Even in 1990, when the Congress had got just 10 seats, it had secured 29.78 per cent of the votes. Then, the erstwhile Janata Dal led by Naveen’s father Biju Patnaik had won 123 seats, getting 53.69 per cent of the votes. In 2009, the Congress had secured 29.1 per cent of the total votes in the Assembly and won 27 seats. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress for the first time drew a blank, despite getting 26 per cent of the votes, while the BJP won only Sundargarh, with a 21.5 per cent overall vote share. The rest 20 seats were bagged by the BJD. Knives out for him, PCC president Jaydev Jena said he took full responsibility for the debacle. Senior Congress leader Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, who lost from Brahmagiri Assembly seat, said the party didn’t contest the elections with the aim of winning and senior leaders could not mobilise the cadre. “The senior leaders of our party were confined to their own constituencies and busy protecting their own interests,” he said. Several top Congress leaders, including Giridhari Gamang, Hemananda Biswal, Srikant Jena and Bhakta Charan Das bit the dust. BJD leaders admitted that their tally even surprised them, and they had estimated to win around 100 seats in the Assembly. “The Congress has been rejected not just at the Centre, but also in Orissa. So any loss in its votes went to our kitty as well as the BJP’s. We also benefited from the increased voting percentage, around 9 per cent more than last time,” said BJD Rajya Sabha MP Kalpataru Das. Though the BJP’s vote share went up from 15.05 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent, this translated into just 4 more seats. In 2009, the BJP had six MLAs.
