BJD wins crucial Patkura bypolls. But, their troubles are far from over

The ruling Biju Janta Dal (BJD) comfortably won the Patkura bypolls, with its candidate Sabitri Agrawal securing the assembly seat in Kendrapara district of coastal Odisha with a margin of more than 17,000 votes against veteran politician and BJP candidate Bijoy Mohapatra, known as the bête noire of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The byelection was the first one after Naveen Patnaik took charge as chief minister for the fifth consecutive term. The voting had taken place on June 20. As an assembly constituency, Patkura is very significant; in 1967, Naveen's father Biju Patnaik, a two-term chief minister, lost this seat on a Congress ticket. Of course, in later years, when Patnaik left Congress to lead the opposition, Patkura and its Lok Sabha seat Kendrapara stood by him till his last.

Interestingly, this time, the Patkura byelection was virtually a fight between Biju's protégées. Mohapatra was number two in Biju Patnaik’s cabinet in the 90s. Agrawal’s husband, the late Bed Prakash Agrawal, was Biju’s finance minister; it was his recent death that necessitated the elections.

During the last general elections, Odisha had simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and the assembly, which has been the trend since 2004. Back then, Naveen Patnaik, as chief minister of BJD-BJP coalition government, pre-poned the assembly election by one year to club it with the Lok Sabha polls.

In this year’s assembly polls, BJD got 112 seats against the state assembly’s strength of 147. Since the chief minister had won from two seats for the first time, he retained his old seat Hinjli of south Odisha’s Ganjam district, resigning from Bijepur of western Odisha’s Bargarh. After his resignation from Bijepur, BJD’s strength had come down to 111. With the Patkura victory, BJD has 112 MLAs now.

Bijepur will also go to bypolls shortly. Bijepur has a political significance as far as western Odisha is concerned. It was a traditional Congress seat. After sitting Congress MLA Subal Sahu’s death, bypoll for this seat was held in early 2018. BJD made the late leader’s wife Rita Sahu its candidate, registering a massive win against BJP. For the past one year, BJP has performed very well in rural polls, particularly in western Odisha. The Bijepur result boosted BJD’s morale. When the chief minister opted for Bijepur as a second constituency, he wanted to counter BJP in the western districts.

But that worked, partially. BJP became the number two party in the state assembly, pushing Congress to a third position; it also won eight Lok Sabha seats, against BJD’s 12. In 2014, the BJP only had one Lok Sabha seat against BJD’s 20. The BJP even won the Bargarh Lok Sabha seat, under which the Bijepur assembly seat comes. Maybe because of that, the chief minister left Bijepur. So, Bijepur assembly bypolls will be crucial for both BJD and BJP.

As far as Patkura is concerned, political analysts feel the BJP core cadre and many of its leaders were not very enthusiastic about the candidate Mohapatra. Moreover, after the general elections, an impression was created that the BJD and BJP have become closer. Naveen Patnaik was not attached to any camp at the national level, maintaining equal distance from both the Congress and the BJP, and not joining the third or federal front. Lately, BJD stated, just before Modi took charge at the Centre, that it will support any government if they take care of Odisha’s interests. After elections, there were elections for three Rajya Sabha seats in the state. All three should have gone to the BJD. But, the BJD left one seat to BJP’s Aswini Vaishnav, a former IAS officer of Odisha cadre, who worked as a private secretary to the late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik said because Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah had requested him, BJD will support Vaishnav. So, the BJP got one Rajya Sabha MP with BJD support. The Congress accused that both parties joined hands. Of course, in Modi’s first term, the BJD had supported Modi whether it was the presidential election or other issues. Though the move has confused the workers of both BJD and BJP, who have been at loggerheads, BJD leaders feel the state may get the Centre’s support in development matters. Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan meeting the chief minister at Delhi also added credence to the new-found rapport. Of course, it has to be seen how both parties will behave when the Bijepur byelection will be fought, followed by the urban body elections due by the year end