Nuapada Bypoll: Key to Odisha’s Political Future
The Congress is proving to be the dark horse in Odisha’s Nuapada by-election.
The by-election for Nuapada assembly constituency — part of Kalahandi Lok Sabha constituency in Odisha — scheduled for November 11 is taking an interesting turn. The election was necessitated because of the death of a four-term Biju Janata Dal MLA last month. This by poll has assumed significance as it happens to be the first test of popular support after the BJP swept aside the 24-year long BJD rule in the state in May 2024.
It’s clearly a prestige battle among Mohan Majhi, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, leader of the principal opposition the BJD and Bhakta Charan Das, president of the fast-rising Odisha Congress. It presages a fierce battle among these three leaders for varying reasons.
For Mohan Majhi, a victory would mean an endorsement of his leadership of the 16-odd month BJP rule in the state. It’s a general rule (though there are a few exceptions) that the ruling party in a state invariably wins a by-election to the state assembly because the electorate seeks to gain from the government’s largesse. But Nuapada presented a formidable challenge as the sitting MP happened to be a BJD MLA. But now that the BJD’s reign has ended after 24 years, the ruling BJP is better placed to seize the seat from the BJD. A defeat in Nuapada would put a question mark on the future of Mohan Majhi.
For Naveen Patnaik too, Nuapada victory or defeat would provide a powerful signal for his political future. After all, he had ruled the state with a firm hand for 24 long years at a stretch, from 2000 till 2024. He lost his power to the BJP last year; The Nuapada election holds special significance for him because his party had succeeded in retaining its stronghold in the constituency in the last year’s assembly poll.
The by-election has been necessitated due to the death of Rajendra Dholakia, his former cabinet colleague and his party’s sitting MLA, on September 8 this year.
If the BJD loses the seat, it would indicate that there is a question mark over Naveen Babu’s popularity as the leader of the opposition; it would reinforce the feeling that his winning ways are over, with the loss of power. But a victory in Nuapada would reassure his party leaders and cadre that the Naveen magic still holds good, and the defeat last year was a temporary blip.
The Nuapada election is also a test case for the leadership of Bhakta Charan Das, the newly appointed Odisha Congress president. The Congress was last in power in the state during 1995-2000; since then it has been on a journey downhill. In the May 2024 assembly election, the party won 14 seats, as against the BJP’s 78 and the BJD’s 51. Its vote percentage has shrunk to almost 13 percent.
Bhakta Charan Das’s appointment as PCC president in February this year has brought a new lease of life to the state Congress. He has succeeded in galvanising the party machinery across the state; a Congress victory in Nuapada by-election would herald a new era in Odisha politics: it would poise the Congress as the principal opposition party to the BJP on the ground and project the BJD as a declining opposition force, despite its larger numbers in the assembly.
Approaching the polls
This is an overview of how the Nuapada by-election holds significance for the three top political parties and their leaders in the state; let us now consider how the three parties have gone around in approaching the election in Nuapada.
Nuapada seat has been a stronghold of the BJD in the recent years, thanks to Rajendra Dholakia’s strong support base in the area. He had been a 4-term MLA from this seat. It was generally expected that the BJD will continue to hold on to its fort in Nuapada by offering the ticket to Rajendra Dholakia’s son, Jay, in order to garner the sympathy vote.
As a matter of fact, soon after his father’s death, Jay Dholakia openly started campaigning in the constituency telling the voters that he had been blessed by the BJD high command to carry on his father’s legacy.
But there was a twist in the tale; the ruling BJP was unsure if any of its candidates could clinch the seat in the bypoll. The BJP last won the Nuapada seat, in 2014, but it had lost to BJD’s Dholakia in both 2019 and 2024 elections. In fact, in 2024, the BJP candidate cut a sorry figure, coming third with sharply reduced votes. With such a track record, the BJP was not confident that any of its candidates would be equal to the challenge of winning the Nuapada seat for the party.
The BJP war machine therefore decided to poach the BJD’s prospective candidate, Jay Dholakia. Jay was a formidable candidate because of his father’s legacy in the constituency. The grapevine tells us that the BJP offered Jay several crores of rupees to defect. He was apparently offered ministership as well. That was incentive enough; Jay Dholakia was taken to Delhi; he met with the senior leadership of the BJP. On his return to Bhubaneswar on October 10, he was given a huge reception, was taken to the BJP office in a big procession.
He joined the BJP in the presence of chief minister Mohan Majhi and state BJP president Manmohan Samal. A shameless Jay Dholakia told the media that he decided to join forces with the ruling BJP to fulfil the dreams of his father for the Nuapada electorate. As expected, the BJP declared him as the party candidate, despite stiff resistance from the party’s local leaders.
There are two versions as to how the BJD looked at this development. One, the conspiratorial one, tells us that the defection of Jay Dholakia to the BJP happened with the consent of the BJD supremo, Naveen Patnaik. It holds that even after losing power to the BJP, Patnaik and his alter ego, V.K. Pandian, continue to kowtow to Narendra Modi and Company and extend support to the ruling dispensation at the Centre because they don’t want the central investigative agencies to be unleashed against them to unearth the scams.
They were ready to sacrifice the Nuapada seat for the BJP. It is worth nothing that Naveen Patnaik was in Delhi from September 7 and he returned to Bhubaneswar only after Jay Dholakia formally joined the BJP on October 10.
The other version, the political one, tells us that the BJD was genuinely shocked and surprised by Jay Dholakia’s somersault. Some BJD leaders have sharpened the attack on Jay Dholakia as a dishonest man unworthy of his father.
One of them said: “Jay Dholakia is the adopted son of Rajendra Dholakia. He doesn’t have Rajendra Dholakia’s blood running through his veins. So he could become a turncoat.”.
On its part, the BJD has zeroed in on Snehangini Churia, a former minister and a former Mahila BJD chief, though she represented the neighbouring Attabira, a reserved SC constituency, twice but had lost the last election in 2024. The final choice fell on her on two counts: one, to avoid intra-party squabble among the many ticket aspirants for the Nuapada constituency; two, to attract the votes of women and the Scheduled Castes.
The Congress, on its part, has declared Ghasiram Majhi as its candidate for the bypoll. Majhi is a veteran of the electoral battles in Nuapada; he had contested last three elections from Nuapada assembly seat, twice as the Congress candidate and once as an independent and he has performed creditably. In 2014, he fought as a Congress candidate and came third, after the the BJP and the BJD candidates, securing 25.90% votes. In 2019, his vote percentage improved to 27.44% and he came second to Rajendra Dholakia of BJD. The BJP, the winner of 2014 election, was pushed to the third position.
In 2024, Nuapada seat was seen as the most secure of all assembly seats in the Congress’s internal survey. So the then Odisha Congress president Sarat Pattanaik decided to put his hat in the ring from there. But Ghasiram Majhi refused to step aside. He contested as an independent and polled 50,941 (27.73%) votes whereas the Congress’s official candidate and then party president Sarat Pattnaik could garner only 15,501 (8.44%) votes. Majhi came second whereas Pattnaik ended up in 4th position, behind the BJP.
The BJD’s Dholakia had won the seat in 2024 with 61,822 (33.65%) votes. The plain calculation was that had Ghasiram Majhi’s and Sarat Pattnaik’s votes been consolidated, the Congress could have trumped the BJD in the last election itself.
That gives hope to the Congress in this by-election. It was first off the track to declare Ghasiram Manjhi as its candidate, more than a week before the BJP and BJD officially declared the names of their respective candidates. Majhi has steadily improved his support base in the last three elections: from 25.90% in 2014 and 27.44% in 2019 as the Congress candidate to 27.73% as an independent candidate. In the last election, the state congress president Sarat Pattnaik was an electoral rival; in the current by-election, the state Congress president Bhakta Charan Das has pitched his tent in Nuapada constituency to see to it that Majhi emerges victorious.
Das is confident that Nuapada will elect its Adivasi leader Ghasiram Majhi this time.
Nuapada has a record of another Adivasi leader by the same name winning the assembly seat for seven times. The older Ghasiram Majhi first won the seat in 1957 on a Congress ticket, but later switched to the Swatantra Party and emerged victorious in 1961 and 1971 elections. He was elected from Nuapada on a Janata Party ticket in 1977. Majhi then won three consecutive terms — in 1985, 1990 and 1995 — from Nuapada as a Janata Dal candidate. That’s a huge inspiration for Ghasiram Majhi of Congress today.
Adivasis constitute a sizeable number in the constituency, more than a lakh within an electorate of around 2.5 lakh. Adivasi votes have, of late, been divided among different parties. Ghasiram Majhi is making an all-out effort to consolidate the tribal vote base behind the Congress, he being the only Adivasi candidate in the fray. This time Majhi has the added advantage as the party president Bhakta Charan Das is leaving no stone unturned to ensure his veteran tribal candidate’s victory.
Majhi had finished the race second in the last two elections; he may well be third time lucky.
