The results of the Lok Sabha elections have come out. On June 4, when the election results were announced, many issues suddenly came into the limelight. Like almost all the exit polls being proved wrong, BJP’s defeat in UP especially in Ayodhya, India Alliance’s lead in Maharashtra, Naveen Patnaik’s departure in Odisha and ‘Mamata Didi’ emerging strong once again in West Bengal.
In the exit polls released just before the election results, BJP was seen gaining a huge lead over TMC in West Bengal. The exit poll figures were also giving BJP a strike rate of more than 50 percent in Odisha. But when the actual results were released on June 4, one aspect of the picture was quite shocking.
Even though BJP has emerged as the largest party in Lok Sabha and Assembly in Odisha, according to the results, the people of Bengal could not get influenced by the ‘saffron colour’. While in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, riding on the Modi wave, BJP captured 18 seats in Bengal, in 2024 this figure came down by 6 seats to 12. However, BJP managed to win 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha. At the same time, out of 147 assembly seats, BJP captured 78 seats. At the same time, BJD got 51 and Congress got 14 seats.
In the 2019 Odisha assembly elections, the BJD had won 112 seats. The BJP had won 23 and the Congress 9 seats. But in 2024, in both Bengal and Odisha, the fight was to establish the political successors of the ruling satraps – Mamata and Naveen. If we talk about Bengal, Mamata has been successful in her attempt as the party’s massive lead with nephew Abhishek Banerjee as the face of TMC has strengthened her position. But in Odisha, 77-year-old Naveen could not save his power. In Odisha, the perception became quite popular that Naveen’s government was going into the hands of Tamil-born former bureaucrat VK Pandian.
The credit for TMC winning 29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal can largely be given to Abhishek and his strategies. Abhishek himself won the Diamond Harbor seat by a record margin of more than seven lakh votes. His interference was also seen in giving tickets in TMC and many of his chosen candidates also won. Apart from this, issues like nationalism, non-release of funds for NREGA and PM Awas Yojana by the Central Government and Sandeshkhali were also handled very well by Abhishek.
On the other hand, in Odisha, Pandian also played a key role in formulating strategy for the BJD, trying to replace sitting MPs and MLAs and establish a pro-development narrative, but nothing worked as expected. The Tamil-dominated narrative in Odisha overshadowed all other factors. The BJP resorted to Odia nationalism to question Pandian’s dominance in the state government.
“It is interesting to see how the proposed successors stopped the BJP’s victory chariot in one state, but were defeated by it in another,” says a political analyst who keeps a close watch on Bengal and Odisha.
BJP considers its victory in Odisha as its achievement, even though it has not got a majority in the Lok Sabha. This became clear when on the evening of June 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted BJP workers in New Delhi by saying ‘Jai Jagannath’. The irony is that during the election campaign, BJP’s new Puri MP Sambit Patra had mistakenly called Lord Jagannath ‘Modi’s devotee’, which the BJD also tried unsuccessfully to make an election issue.
– Arkamay Dutta Majumdar