Orissa Cong likely to face uphill task

The Congress has come to power six times: in 1952, 1961, 1974, 1980, 1985 and 1995. It won the 1952 Assembly elections with 68 seats, but was defeated by the Ganatantra Parishad in 1957, when its strength was reduced to 55. In 1961, the party again came to power, capturing 82 seats.

In 1967, the party suffered a major jolt when the Swatantra Party and the Jana Congress dislodged it, and its number in the Assembly dwindled to 31. The 1971 polls saw the voters rejecting the Swatantra-Jana Congress combineand voting for the Swatantra Utkal Congress combine, but the combination did not last long and the Congress, under the leadership of Nandini Satpathy, came to power in 1974.

The 1977 Assembly elections saw the rise in popularity of the Janata Party, which bagged 110 of the 147 Assembly seats. The ruling Congress could win only 26 seats. It, however, romped home with 117 seats in the 1980 Assembly polls, while the Janata Party, which split into Janata S and Janata JP, failed miserably, bagging only 13 and three seats respectively.