BJP-BJD rift helped Cong in Orissa

Decan Herald, May 20, 2009

The Congress, which won six out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in Orissa during the 2009 elections, perhaps would have failed to open its account had the alliance between the ruling Biju Janata Dal(BJD) and Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) not broken down.

A detailed analysis of the six Lok Sabha seats where the Congress candidates have emerged victorious revealed that in four out of these six constituencies the BJD and BJP contestants together had captured more votes than the Congress nominees. Similarly, in the rest two Parliament seats, the BJD-backed NCP and CPM candidates along with BJP nominees had polled more votes than their Congress rivals.
In the prestigious western Orissa LS constituency of Kalahandi, BJD nominee Subash Chandra Nayak (2,47,699) and BJP’s three-time MP B K Deo (2,21,851) together managed to garner 67,000 more votes than the Congress candidate Bhakta Charan Das’s 4,01,736.

Das, a former union minister and working president of the Pradesh Congress Committee(PCC), won the important seat defeating his nearest Biju Janata Dal rival by a margin of more than 1.5 lakh votes. In the north Orissa Balasore Lok Sabha seat, Congress nominee and former Union minister Srikanta Jena registered victory over his nearest BJD-backed NCP candidate Arun Dey by a margin of 38,900 votes. The latter, together with BJP’s A K Swain, had managed to poll 1.8 lakh more votes than Jena.

While Jena had received 3,13,888 votes, Dey and Swain got 2,74,988 and 2,19.908 votes respectively. Similar interesting figures have emerged from the four other Lok Sabha seats—Sambalpur, Nowrangpur, Sundergarh and Bargarh—won by the Congress candidates.
However, the BJD leaders said their party took the right decision by snapping its ties with the BJP and had no regrets for losing the six Lok Sabha seats.

“After breaking the alliance with the BJP we increased our Lok Sabha seat tally from 11 to 14 whereas the BJP’s number went down from seven to zero. Similarly, when our strength in the state assembly went up handsomely from 61 to 103, the BJP’s number has reduced drastically from 32 to only 6. This proves that they were only enjoying success on our strength”, said a senior BJD leader.
DH News Service.