Ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was leading in nearly 80 per cent zilla parishad seats in Odisha as counting for panchayat elections was underway on Saturday. The party is, thus, far ahead of its nearest rival BJP while Congress has been relegated to the third position.

Out of the 850 zilla parishad seats in the state, the BJD bagged 273 seats and BJP won 20 till Saturday evening. The Congress got 15 seats while independent candidates grabbed two.

As per the State Election Commission, a clear picture would emerge later at night. However, there are strong indications that the ruling party may sweep the polls. In the three-tier panchayati raj system, elections to the zilla parishad seats are held with party symbols.

On the other hand, elections to the sarpanch and ward members are being held without any party symbols. The parties give their tacit support to the candidates without coming to the forefront. Generally the parties that contest in the zilla parishad seats field candidates for sarpanch and ward members as well. So the party which sweeps the zilla parishad seats, wins the sarpanch seats and ward members. In 2017, the BJD had won 473 zilla parishad seats, while BJP grabbed 296 and Congress managed to bag only 60 seats.

With this trend, the BJD has sent a strong signal again that despite being in power for the last 21 years, it remained the number one choice for people. Riding on chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s image and its pro-people schemes, the ruling party has sounded a clear message that it would have an edge over its rival in the upcoming civic elections that is supposed to be held on March 24.

What is most significant is that the chief minister had not gone campaigning to any part of the state for the rural poll.

“In fact, ahead of the elections, Naveen had completed his tour of the districts by joining various programmes of health card distribution to the beneficiaries. While in other elections, its cheap rice scheme has played an important role, this time the free health card given to the beneficiaries has paid the dividends. Besides, the Rs 3,000 assistance to repair the house and Rs 1,000 livelihood assistance to nearly 96 lakh families have brought the desired result in favour of the party,” said senior journalist Samar Pradhan.

On the other hand, the BJP failed to penetrate the rural areas. “ The BJP failed to convince the people that it would be able to replace the BJD in the state. Though it had organised a series of demonstrations on various issues to highlight the state’s deteriorating law and order problem, unemployment and other issues, it failed to make an impact on the moods of the general public. And today’s result has shown it,” said another political activist.

Many have also argued that the lack of coordination between the top leaders at the highest level, particularly the growing difference between Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhubaneswar BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi had also its impact on the result.

“The leadership failed to galvanize the BJP cadres to throw a serious challenge to the leadership. Besides, Union Minister Dharemendra Pradhan who remained busy for UP elections was unable to give time for panchayat election,” admitted a senior BJP leader.