Odisha Elections: BJP ousts Naveen Patnaik's BJD after 24 years in power in Assembly. Here's what went wrong

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Assembly elections 2024, the BJP secured victory with 78 seats while BJP could win only 51. Other paties like Congress won 14 seats, CPI(M) won 1 and Independent secured 3 seats. In the 2019 assembly elections, the Naveen Patnaik-led party had won 113 seats.In the 2024 Assembly elections, Patnaik had contested from Hinjili and Kantabanji seat of of which he won only from the Hinjili Assembly Constituency with 66,459.

Notably, it is important to note that he won by a margin of only 4636. BJP candidate Sisir Kumar Mishra secured 61823 votes.In the Lok Sabha elections, the party has been in power since 2000. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJD had won 12 seats while BJP had won 8 and the congress had won 1 seat.

Prior to that in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party had won 20 seats, BJP 1 and Congress 0. This would be the first BJP government in the political history of Odisha. Though the BJP was in alliance with the BJD and formed the government from 2000 to 2009, the combination collapsed ahead of the 2009 general elections.

The BJP has been contesting against the BJD and failed to make any remarkable performance till 2024. Even prior to the 2024 elections, there was an attempt to go for a seat-sharing between the BJD and the BJP, which incidentally failed.The state witnessed intense campaigning by the BJP with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself addressing 10 poll rallies besides holding two road shows in Bhubaneswar and Puri. As per BJP state vice-president Golak Mohapatra, “The BJP central leaders have held at least 245 election meetings across the state."Apart from PM Modi, top party leaders like Amit Shah, J P Nadda, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Hema Malini and many others campaigned while the BJD’s