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| BJD rides huge 11.5 per cent rise in vote share to power |
| Press Trust of India / Bhubaneswar May 20, 2009, 11:40 IST |
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A steep rise of 11.5 per cent votes in its favour propelled the ruling BJD to a landslide victory in the recent assembly elections in Orissa as it grabbed 103 seats in the 147-member house.
The regional party, headed by chief minister Naveen Patnaik, has grabbed a vote share of 38.86 per cent in the just concluded polls compared to its share of 27.36 per cent when it won 61 seats while contesting the 2004 polls in alliance with the BJP.
The vote share of BJD in the assembly polls was marginally higher than 37.23 per cent secured by it in the Lok Sabha elections in which 14 of its 18 candidates emerged victorious this time.
As BJD's vote share sky-rocketed, the party which had fielded 130 candidates while leaving 17 seats to the NCP, CPI and CPI(M), raised its tally by 42.
This is the first time that a regional party could secure absolute majority in an assembly poll in Orissa though three regional outfits — Ganatantra Parishad, Jana Congress and Utkal Congress — had shared power with other parties between 1959 and 1971.
The main opposition Congress, which had accounted for 34.82 per cent of the total votes in 2004 assembly elections, saw its vote share plummet to 29.10 per cent, registering a drop of about 5.72 per cent.
Owing to the swing against it, the Congress tally in the assembly nose-dived to 27 compared to 38 seats it had won in the 2004 assembly elections. In Lok Sabha polls too, the Congress vote share fell from 40.43 per cent in 2004 to 32.75 per cent.
The vote share of BJP, which fought the polls alone after BJD abruptly ended the 11-year-long alliance on March 7, dwindled from 17.11 per cent in 2004 to 15.03 per cent this time. The BJP could secure 16.89 per cent votes in the Lok Sabha election.
The BJP, which had won 32 assembly seats in the 2004 elections, failed to reach double digit this time as only six of its candidates could taste victory due to sharp fall in its vote share following its acrimonious parting of ways with the BJD.
The vote share of CPI, which had entered into a seat sharing arrangement with BJD, stood at 0.51 per cent with one of its four candidates winning.
The party, whose candidate Adikanda Sethi won from Chhatrapur assembly seat, had performed a little better with 0.77 per cent votes in the 2004 assembly elections when one of its candidates won.
Similarly, the vote share of CPI(M), which does not have a big following in the state, came down to 0.42 per cent from 0.55 per cent it had polled last time as the party failed to open its account this time. It had one legislator in the previous house.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which had secured 1.93 per cent of votes in the last assembly elections, saw its share drop to 1.45 per cent. In the Lok Sabha polls, BSP did better securing 2.2 per cent of votes this time against 1.90 per cent in 2004.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), whose vote share stood at 1.58 per cent, failed to win any seat, while Samajwadi Party with its vote percentage of 0.60 also came a cropper.
The vote share of independent candidates was reduced by about half from 12.2 per cent in 2004 assembly elections to about six per cent this time even as six of them have made it to the assembly.
Independent candidates polled about 4.61 per cent in the Lok Sabha polls in the state.
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