2024 Odisha Legislative Assembly election

Legislative Assembly elections were held in the eastern coastal state of Odisha from 13 May to 1 June 2024 to elect the 147 members of the Odisha Legislative Assembly. The votes were counted and results were declared on 4 June 2024 for all members of the 17th Assembly.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a simple majority with 78 seats and created history by ending the 24 year rule of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and its leader Naveen Patnaik. Mohan Charan Majhi, the MLA from Keonjhar took oath as the 15th Chief Minister of the state on 12th June, along with Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida as deputy chief ministers.

Background
The tenure of sixteenth Odisha Legislative Assembly was scheduled to end on 24 June 2024. The previous assembly elections were held in April 2019. After the elections, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) formed the state government, with the then incumbent Naveen Patnaik continuing as the Chief Minister.

Schedule
The schedule of the election was announced by the Election Commission of India on 16 March 2024. The phases 1, 2, 3, 4 of the Assembly election coincided with the phases 4, 5, 6, 7 of the Indian General Election, which were being held simultaneously.



Parties and campaigns
BJD and BJP contested in all the 147 constituencies whereas INC contested in 145 seats and provided support to other parties in the 2 remainder constituencies. Manifesto of BJD included 24 major promises like youth empowerment, free electricity to farmers, zero interest loans to businesswomen, tribal empowerment, infrastructure and sports development, food security and good governance. BJP's manifesto for the elections included 21 major points like to start Samrudh Krushak Niti under which paddy crop would receive inr 3100 price per quintal, Subhadra Yojana would allow inr 50000 cash voucher to women, to develop fishing industry, increase road connectivity, providing 3.5 lakh jobs by 2029, increase tourism and more. BJP also focused on reducing the corrupt practices of the incumbent BJD government.

Another important factor in the polls was the possibility of the 78 years old Naveen Patnaik, who had been ruling for the last 24 years, being succeeded by his personal secretary, a Tamil IAS officer named V. K. Pandian, as the new Chief Minister of Odisha. Pandian came into the good-books of Chief Minister Patnaik due to his effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. In 2023, Pandian quit his job in the state bureaucracy & joined the ruling BJD. His unchallenged clout within the party & state government made him deeply unpopular with the masses. The BJP heavily campaigned on the prospect of BJD planning to make an 'outsider' like Pandian the next CM, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi even alleging that Pandian was secretly siphoning off money from the treasury of Puri's Jagannath Temple, a charge Pandian vehemently denied. Patnaik refuted all rumours of Pandian being his successor. Odisha's election since independence has always being neautral but 2024 election saw a rise in political awarness among the voters reflecting the 2 decade old centric socialistic ideology and the nationalistic and asimita(i.e pride) approach.

Candidates
Overall 1,283 candidates contested the elections for the 147 seats in the assembly. Out of these, 348 candidates (approximately 27%) have declared criminal cases against themselves and 292 (approximately 23%) have serious criminal cases against themselves. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Odisha Election Watch reported that 66 candidates have declared cases for the to crime committed against women, with 4 candidates declaring that they have been charged for rape. In their affidavit filled before elections, 10 candidates have declared that they have cases related to murder. 5 candidates informed in their candidature about cases filed against them related to hate speech. Party-wise, the percentages of candidates with criminal cases are: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have ~68%, Indian National Congress (INC) with ~41%, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) have ~31%, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is with ~17.

As per the affidavits, 412 (BJD - 128, BJP - 96, INC- 88, AAP - 11, Others - 89) have declared their family's assets to be worth more than inr 10000000 and average assets are worth inr 28900000. Highest assets were declared by Dilip Kumar Ray (BJP, Rourkela seat, inr 3130000000) followed by Sanatan Mahakud (BJD, Champua seat, inr 2270000000) and Subasini Jena (BJD, Basta seat, inr 1350000000). Education wise, 652 candidates (approximately 51%) have education of graduate or above and only 2 are illiterate. 51 candidates have diplomas and 566 contestants have studied classes from 5th to 12th. Only 14% of candidates (i.e. 178) were women. BJD had been the strong supporter of the Women's Reservation Bill, 2023 and had nominated 34 women candidates (approximately 23%) out of 147 and majority of these were from political families. BJP provided tickets to 10 women candidates.

Surveys and polls
The exit polls by Axis My India presented that both BJP & BJD may win 62-80 seats also predicting the worst case of concluding in a hung assembly. However, Times Now predicted a clear win for BJD to continue their hold on the Odisha state government.

Results and statistics
BJP won 78 seats as compared to 23 from previous election whereas BJD won 51 as against to 115. Of the 147 MLAs elected, 11 are women (~7%) which has reduced from 14 MLAs from previous assembly. Out of these 11 women MLAs, 5 are from BJP, 5 from BJD and one from INC. In 2019, the MLAs with at least under graduate education was 73%; which has now reduced to 65%. The average age of the assembly is 51. Out of all the winning candidates, 85 have declared in their pre-poll affidavits to have criminal cases registered against them. Of these, 67 have serious criminal cases. As compared to the previous 16th Odisha Assembly which was elected in 2019, the total MLAs with criminal charges were 67.

97 incumbent MLAs contested for this election of which only 45 won. Although incumbency was a major campaign against BJD, 66 incumbent MLAs contested the polls, of which 25 won. Naveen Patnaik the incumbent Chief Minister, won in the Hinjli constituency with margin of 4,636 votes but lost in Kantabanji constituency with margin of 16,344 votes. 5 MLAs have won from their respective constituencies with margin of less than a thousand votes. Notably amongst them is Ananta Narayan Jena of BJD winning by 37 votes from Bhubaneswar Central. Aswini Kumar Patra (former Cultural Minister, Jaleswar seat) and Arun Kumar Sahoo (former Education Minister, Nayagarh seat) won by 319 and 439 votes respectively. Biswa Ranjan Mallick	of BJD won the Bari seat with the highest margin of 51,465 winning 63.77% votes.

Aftermath
On 4 June 2024, BJP won 78 seats crossing the required majority mark of 74 and thus won the elections. Mohan Charan Majhi was declared to be the Chief Minister and was sworn in on 12 June to form the state government. 15 other ministers, including Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida as the Deputy CMs, also took oaths.

V. K. Pandian was single-handedly blamed by the rank-and-file of BJD for its spectacular loss in both state election & simultaneously held parliamentary elections. Following this massive backlash, Pandian decided to quit active politics.

BJD had nominated 34 women candidates, but only 5 could win. The Hindu reported that although these women candidates were from political families, winnability factor was ignored and strong anti-incumbency feeling amongst the voters played an important role against them. Ganesh Gaigouria, visiting faculty of National Law School of India University, Bengaluru writing for Indian Express commented that major three reasons for loss of BJD in the elections were fear of bureaucratisation of the state administration under V. K. Pandian, religious polarization in the aftermath of communal riots between Hindus & Muslims in Sambalpur last year causing marginalization of development agenda and identity politics over Odia Asmita (i.e. pride in being Odia) in the backdrop of the Tamil origin Pandian's prospects of becoming chief minister. Gaigouria argues that BJP successfully campaigned against BJD on these points and won the elections.

Himanshu Sekhar Sahoo, who was elected from the Dharmasala seat as an independent, rejoined the BJP.