Odisha Assembly Election: The Odisha Assembly Election 2024 will see 147 members elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly. The results will be declared on June 4, 2024, along with the Lok Sabha elections. This election is crucial to determine the governance of the state and representation at both the state and national levels. The Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Odisha were held simultaneously in four phases from May 13 to June 1.
On June 2, the India Today-Axis My India exit poll predicted that the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) will have a close contest with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Both are projected to win 62-80 seats in the 147-member assembly. Other parties in the fray are the Indian National Congress, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and others.
According to projections, the BJP, with a vote share of 32.49% in 2019, is now expected to get 42% of the vote, indicating a rise of about 10%. The Congress is projected to finish third with five to eight seats and 12% of the votes.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, Odisha voters who participated in the concurrent state and Lok Sabha elections gave the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) 117 seats, the BJP 23 and the Congress nine. BJD president Naveen Patnaik, who first took over as chief minister in 2000, was re-elected for the fifth consecutive time. This earned him the distinction as one of India’s longest-serving chief ministers.
For the Lok Sabha elections, Odisha has a total of 21 parliamentary seats, some of which are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates. Historical perspective shows that during the last elections in 2019, under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik, BJD won 12 seats while BJP secured 8 seats; Indian National Congress got only 1 seat. For the Lok Sabha elections, the India Today-Axis My India exit poll indicated a significant change in the political landscape of Odisha. BJP is projected to get 18 to 20 seats, while BJD may win only 0 to 2 seats. In terms of vote share, BJP leads with an estimated 51%, followed by BJD at 33% and Congress at 13%. These projections are based on extensive polling data collected from interviews of nearly 580,000 individuals across all 543 parliamentary constituencies. Similarly, the C-Voter exit poll showed that BJP may capture 17 to 19 of the total 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha, while BJD may only manage to secure three seats. Meanwhile, News18 exit polls have predicted that the BJP may emerge victorious in around 15 constituencies, while the BJD may get 6 to 8 seats. The BJD is currently facing the most challenging electoral contest in its two-and-a-half decade history, struggling to recreate its previous impressive performance amid anti-incumbency in the current elections. The BJP and the BJD had not joined hands before the Lok Sabha elections. BJP state unit chief Manmohan Samal stressed the need for a ‘double engine government’ for the rapid development of the state. He mentioned that the welfare schemes of the Modi government are not effectively benefiting the people of Odisha.