The public mandate was in the favor of the ruling BJD in the Odisha panchayat poll. Out of the 852 Zilla Parishad zone polls, BJD has won in 766 seats, BJP bagged 42, and the Congress won 37 seats. Out of the 30 districts, BJP and Congress scored zero while independent candidates won three seats and others got four seats.

The Opposition lost the previous record and failed to put its act together to counter the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD. BJP got 52.73 per cent of the vote, 30.07 per cent vote goes to BJP and 13.57 per cent of the vote to Congress and 3.16 per cent voted for Independents and other candidates in the panchayat polls.

BJD supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has expressed gratitude to the people of the state for their support to the party in the Panchayat elections and congratulated his party workers. Taking to Twitter, he said, “My sincere thanks to all of you for helping the BJD win the three-tier panchayat elections with unwavering love. This has further strengthened our commitment to public service. My congratulations to the winning candidates and all the party activists and workers who turned the BJD into a people’s movement through their dedicated hard work.”

Respecting the mandate, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, “The state is getting the maximum benefit from different welfare schemes of Union government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been focusing on eastern India. We will strengthen the organisation and work hard to ensure the welfare programme of the union govt to reach people.”

The BJD has won a maximum of zones in all 30 districts and set to form all the ZPs. In 2017, the party was able to form ZPs in only 20 districts while the BJP and the Congress had then formed 8 and 2 ZPs, respectively.

In 2022, rural poll results indicated the biggest setback for BJP as the party lost 255 ZP zones. The party failed to win even a single seat in as many as 10 districts – Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur. Similarly, Congress failed to win a single seat in 18 districts leaving the party much to introspect. Union Minister Biswashwar Tudu also failed to get a single ZP seat under his constituency.

The political analysts said that several reasons caused the failure of the saffron party in the state. Heavyweights were not able to give time for the campaigning in panchayat elections.

As per the view, a strong leadership crisis is a bigger factor of failure for the Opposition. Both BJP and Congress couldn’t project their leaders for the panchayat poll. Similarly, no senior leader came to the campaign for party candidates in the field and the campaign was not issue-based. Ruling BJD made proper strategy for election management and got landslide victory. BJD had devised a strategy to strengthen it at the grass-root level. The party managed to bring the leaders of the Opposition parties to its fold. Its leaders were assigned with the target as per the zone wise. But due to a lack of plan and election management opposition lost voters’ trust. Congress’s dismal performance is due to leadership problems and internal conflicts.

BJP

In 2017, BJP got 33 per cent of the vote and formed ZPS in 10 districts. In the 2019 general election, it got 32 per cent of the voting percentage and in 2022 panchayat poll, the biggest setback for BJP as the party lost 255 zones and the voting percentage declined to 30 per cent.

Congress

Similarly, Congress got an 18 per cent vote in the 2017 panchayat poll and formed ZPs in 2 districts. In the 2019 general election, it’s down to 16 per cent and in 2022 panchayat poll, Congress performed worst and the voting percentage declined to 13 per cent.

BJD

In 2017 Panchayat Poll, BJD got 43 per cent and formed ZPs in 20 districts. In 2019 general elections, voting percentage towards BJD climb edto 44.8 per cent. In 2022 Panchayat Poll, public mandate in favour of BJD and voting percentage reached at 53 per cent. Ruling BJD set to form ZPs in all 30 districts of Odisha.

Notably, election will be held for three municipal corporation and 106 NAC on March 24. Ahead of urban local bodies election, the BJD’s landslide victory is giving sign of public mandate and responsibilities for party workers.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Assembly Elections Live Updates here.