Reasons And Excuses For BJP's Loss

[G.Subramaniam]

BJP held onto vote share in Orissa

TOI

Congress loss is Naveen's gain in Orissa
19 May 2009, 0224 hrs IST, TNN
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When Naveen Patnaik decided on the eve of the Lok Sabha and state assembly polls to break off his ties with the BJP and go it practically alone
in the state – barring seat sharing arrangements with relatively minor players like the Left and NCP – he was taking a huge gamble. To understand the extent of it, consider the vote shares from the 2004 polls.

In the LS polls that year, the BJD won 30% of the vote, the Congress 40.4%. In other words, the Congress
had a lead of over 10% in vote share. The BJP’s 19.3% vote share more than helped to cover that gap. But with the BJP gone, wouldn’t the BJD be a sitting duck for Congress? Most betting men might have though so, but Patnaik has proved his gambler’s instincts are more finely honed.

What has actually happened is that the BJP’s vote share has dropped from 19.3% to 16.9%. But even if all of this 2.4% change had shifted to BJD, the party would have come nowhere close to matching the Congress 2004 vote tally.

In fact, the BJD has managed to raise it own vote share by an impressive 7.2% to reach 37.2%. That still appears like too little to overtake the Congress, but it was more than what the Congress won this time round. The party’s vote share dropped to 32.7% — a drop that almost exactly mirrored the rise in BJD’s share.

Whether Patnaik or his advisors actually foresaw this happy combination of events – an increase in their own quota of votes and a corresponding drop in the main opposition party’s share – we do not know, but the result has been dramatic. Far from losing seats held earlier, the BJD has added to its tally and wiped out the BJP from the Lok Sabha seats in Orissa.