AS VOTING wraps up in nine of the total 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha, there seems to be no resurrection of Congress fortunes. The party that won just one seat in 2019, Koraput, seems in with a chance in only two – Koraput again and Nabarangpur in Koraput district, a region known to be its fortress. The Congress has been declining in the state, and the 14% of the votes it got in the Lok Sabha polls for a single seat, was a fall of as much as 12.4% from 2014, when it won no seats. In 2009, before the start of the Modi wave, the Congress got 32.7% of the votes, and won six seats. In the same 10-year period, the BJP has gone from strength to strength. In 2009, the party finished above third in just one seat, where it got 35% vote share, and secured more than 20% vote share in a total of six seats. In 2014, the BJP got more than 30% vote share in four seats and more than 20% in another eight. In 2019, the party’s vote share was in the 30%-40% range in almost every Lok Sabha seat barring Koraput and Jagatsinghpur, where it polled 19.28% and 28.3%, respectively. The Congress had contested 18 of Odisha’s 21 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, leaving one each to allies CPI, CPI(M) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Of the 18, the Congress got less than 10% of the votes in six, and below 20% in seven seats. Given its traditional base in the tribal-dominated Koraput-Balangir-Kalahandi (KBK) region, the Congress managed to secure over 20% vote share in some constituencies in this region. Beyond the KBK region, the party secured sizeable vote share in Sundargarh, another tribal-dominated area, where it was 24.36%. In this landscape, the Congress state unit admits a drooping morale. In the run-up to the polls, at least a dozen senior leaders, including former MLAs, left the party for the BJD or BJP and have been rewarded with tickets. The most prominent among them are former MP and tribal face Pradeep Majhi and former MLAs Chiranjib Biswal, Ganeswar Behera, Anshuman Mohanty, Surendra Singh Bhoi and Nihar Mahananda. “Considering the party’s declining strength, it would be difficult to even stay relevant in the polls in most seats after the results,” a senior Congress leader said. Flagging reasons for the party losing ground in Odisha, another Congress leader said that beyond the factors behind the party's decline across the country, "Other factors in Odisha are factionalism, and switching of leaders to the BJD and BJP. We need to groom a credible face with pan-Odisha appeal. The lack of political activities on the ground and the high command’s neglect of Odisha are other factors,” said a Congress leader. Since the elections were announced in March, top Congress leaders have only campaigned in Odisha a handful of times. While Congress MP Rahul Gandhi addressed two rallies – in Cuttack and Balangir – and cancelled one in Rayagada to file his nomination papers from Rae Bareli, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary Sachin Pilot addressed a rally each. In contrast, the BJP saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi address seven rallies and attend two roadshows and Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed at least seven rallies. However, Biswaranjan Mohanty, the chairman of the Odisha Congress media department, said the vote share of a party “is not permanent”. He cited the example of the Telangana Assembly elections last November and said the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi would have an “impact”. “We have developed a strategy to not just hold our existing vote share but also to turn the table by increasing it. We are trying to bring grassroots leaders who have an influence on a sizeable population into the party fold,” Mohanty said.
