2024 General Election Result: Why BJD lost the election

The 2024 Odisha election is surprising for the ruling party, BJD, as well as the winning party, BJP. In fact, this outcome surprised the people of Odisha as well. Everyone was sure that the BJP would be leading in Parliament seats, whereas the BJD would be leading in assembly seats. But the BJP won 20 out of 21 parliamentary seats, whereas the BJD got none. On the other hand, the BJP also won 78 assembly seats (the majority is 74 seats), and the BJD trailed, winning just 51 seats and losing the election. Interestingly, most development in Odisha in terms of infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, colleges, etc.) and public welfare (such as BSKY, Mission Shakti, KALIA etc.) happened during the 2019–2024 stint of Navin Patnaik. That’s why it requires an analysis of the reasons for what happened in the 2024 election.

To understand Odisha politics, let me give some facts. Narendra Modi and Navin Patnaik are equally popular in Odisha. People wish Narendra Modi to be PM and Navin Patnaik to be CM. Then Odisha is a mature polity. Here, there’s no vote bank based on caste, religion, or such other things. Odisha people like development, good governance, and being honest about their opinions. There’s also no fixed ideology among any community.

In 2014, when Narendra Modi became Prime Ministerial candidate, Odisha people weren’t so confident about him and the BJP. That’s why, in the 2014 general election, the BJP got just one seat with a 21.88% vote share, whereas the popular Navin Patnaik led BJD won 20 seats with a 44.77% vote share. Although Congress couldn’t win a single seat, it was the second largest party in terms of vote share (26.38%). This is evident from the assembly result, where Congress got 16 seats with vote share of 25.7% compared to BJP’s 10 seats with vote share of 18%. BJD had swept the assembly election 2014 with 117 seats and 43.4% vote share.

Then came the 2019 election. By this time, Narendra Modi had gained popularity in Odisha as PM, whereas Navin Patnaik as CM too remained popular. People wanted Modi to be PM and Navin to be CM. That was evident in the election results of both the parliamentary and assembly elections. In 2019, the BJP had increased its vote share from 21.88% to 38.4% and won 8 seats, (an increase of 7 seats from 2014. BJD got a vote share of 42.8% (a loss of around 2% vote share compared to 2014) and 12 seats, a loss of 8 seats compared to 2014. But then, in the assembly election, BJD got 44.71%, or around 1.3% more vote share than in 2014, although it got 112 seats, a loss of 5 seats compared to 2014. On the other hand, the BJP has increased its vote share up to 32.49% (an increase of 16.5%), mostly at the expense of Congress and others. It got 23 seats, an increase of 13 seats compared to 2014. By this time, the BJP has established itself as the number-two party in both parliamentary and assembly elections. The Odisha public also displayed a rare maturity in voting differently for the assembly and parliament.

Then came 2024. In the parliamentary election, the BJP secured a vote share of 45.34%, an increase of 6.94% vote share, and won 20 seats out of 21, an increase of 12 seats compared to 2014. On the other hand, BJD got only 37.53% of the of the vote, a reduction of 5.27% compared to 2019, and couldn’t won a single seat. This was evident from the public mindset. Voters wanted BJP to form the government in centre. They also knew that BJD will support BJP in the centre. But then people must have thought about what’s the point of giving BJD any mandate for Lok Sabha as the MPs of BJD had to support Narendra Modi. It would be better to give the mandate to BJP for Lok Sabha. That worked.

But the problem occurred in the Assembly election. The public definitely wanted Navin Patnaik to continue as CM of Odisha. BJD got 40.22% of the of the vote, which is around 4.5% less than 2019 but was marginally larger than the BJP’s vote share of 40.07%, although the BJP had increased it’s vote share by 7.5%. BJD’s increasing vote share in the Assembly compared to it’s parliamentary vote share speaks to the to the public’s wish. Similarly, the BJP too gets a lower vote share in the Assembly compared to its parliamentary vote share.  So, the public wish was crystal clear, yet the BJP got 78 seats while BJD trailed with just 51 seats. What has happened?

Politics, especially electoral politics, is the game of perception. In this perception game, recency bias always dominated. No doubt, the Navin Government had done a lot of welfare programs, but all these development and welfare programs became non-issue when people had the perception that Navin Patnaik became incapable because of his age, and his personal assistant, V.K. Pandian, completely hijacked the party. The facts may be different, but people started believing this perception. And then Mr. Pandian started dictating terms both in government and party, which became an eyesore to the loyalties of Navin Patnaik.

So, people didn’t want Mr. Pandian to take over the party and state. That might be the reason why people didn’t give the mandate. On the other hand, the anti-incumbency of the BJD MLAs was very high. So, in most constituencies, people thought that in any case, Navin would be the CM, but let’s teach a lesson to this BJD MLA. So, in aggregate, BJD lost the assembly elections.