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 forming 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. Later the 3 independent MLAs joined to the BJP, increasing it to 81. The BJP state president Manmohan Samal, under whose leadership the election was fought, lost his election from Chandabali Seat. On 12th June 2024, Mohan Charan Majhi, the MLA from Keonjhar took oath as the 15th Chief Minister of the state, along with Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida as deputy chief ministers.
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.
The schedule of the election was announced by the Election Commission of India on 16 March 2024. The polling was held in four phases which coincided with the phases 4 to 7 of the simultaneously held Indian General Election.
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. Election 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 included 21 major points like the start of "Samruddha Krusaka Niti" under which paddy crop would receive ₹3,100 (US$36) price per quintal and "Subhadra Jojana" which would allow ₹50,000 (US$580) cash voucher to women. It also included development of fishing industry, increasing road connectivity, providing 3.5 lakh jobs by 2029, increasing tourism and more. BJP also focused on reducing the corrupt practices of the incumbent BJD government.
Another important factor was the possibility of Naveen Patnaik, who had been ruling for the last 24 years, being succeeded by his personal secretary V. K. Pandian, a Tamil IAS officer. Pandian came into the good-books of Patnaik due to his effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. In 2023, Pandian quit his job in the state bureaucracy and joined the ruling BJD. 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 which Pandian vehemently denied. Patnaik refuted all rumours of Pandian being his successor.
Overall 1,283 candidates contested the elections for the 147 seats in the assembly. Out of these, 348 candidates (approximately 27%) had declared criminal cases against themselves and 292 (approximately 23%) had serious criminal cases against themselves. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Odisha Election Watch reported that 66 candidates have declared cases for the crime committed against women, with 4 candidates declaring that they have been charged for rape. In their affidavit filed 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) had declared their family's assets to be worth more than ₹1 crore (US$120,000) and average assets were worth ₹2.89 crore (US$340,000). Highest assets were declared by Dilip Kumar Ray (BJP, Rourkela seat, ₹313 crore (US$37 million)) followed by Sanatan Mahakud (BJD, Champua seat, ₹227 crore (US$27 million)) and Subasini Jena (BJD, Basta seat, ₹135 crore (US$16 million)). Education wise, 652 candidates (approximately 51%) had education of graduate or above and only 2 were illiterate. 51 candidates had diplomas and 566 contestants had 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.
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 continuing their hold on the Odisha state government.
BJP won 78 seats as compared to 23 from previous election whereas BJD won 51 as against to 112. The 3 MLAs who were independents, joined BJP post-elections. Hence it increased to 81 from 78 seats. 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 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, as compared to 67 in previous assembly. Of these, 67 have serious criminal cases.
97 incumbent MLAs contested for this election of which only 45 won. Although incumbency was a major campaign against BJD, 66 incumbent BJD MLAs contested the polls, of which 25 won. Naveen Patnaik the incumbent Chief Minister, won in the Hinjli constituency with a margin of 4,636 votes but lost in Kantabanji constituency with a 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 from the Bari seat with the highest margin of 51,465 by winning 63.77% votes. BJD won slightly higher vote share than BJP, but it was unable to convert it into seat numbers otherwise it would have got more seats in the assembly and again formed govt.
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 took oaths, including Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida as the Deputy CMs.
Pandian was single-handedly blamed by the rank-and-file of BJD for its spectacular loss in both state election and the simultaneously held Lok Sabha 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 Pandian, religious polarization in the aftermath of communal riots between Hindus & Muslims in Sambalpur last year and identity politics over Odia Asmita (i.e. pride in being Odia) in the backdrop of the Tamil origin Pandian's prospects of becoming CM. 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.