Bhubaneswar: The zilla parishad (ZP) election results must have come as a blow to the BJPwhich had hoped for a much improved show after it had bagged 297 seats in 2017, a huge jump from the 36 five years earlier.
Given the situation after the second day of counting of more than 600 ZP seats, the BJP has won just 15 seats and are ahead in 19, a far cry from its performance five years back, which led the party to capture eight Lok Sabha seats, mostly in places where it formed the district parishads.
From just one Lok Sabha seat in 2014 to eight in 2019, BJP’s gain was propelled by ZP success. But after the first day’s counting, BJP leaders and workers seem to have seen the writing on the wall.
BJP state president Samir Mohanty said that somewhere the votes the BJP got in various ZP zones didn’t convert into win. “In the 2017 panchayat election, we had 34% vote share. This time also, it will be between 32 and 35%,” Mohanty said.
“But the votes somehow didn’t convert into seats for the BJP. I think the votes the Congress got in 2017, has now gone to the BJD. That could be a major contributing factor,” he added. Mohanty said they will introspect where they went wrong.
In 2017, BJP formed district parishad in western districts of Kalahandi, Balangir, Bargarh, Sambalpur and Mayurbhanj, In all these districts, the Lok Sabha seats also went to the BJP.
Shibadatta Mishra, a BJP candidate, who won zone-17 in Balangir district, attributed the debacle to complacency among the party cadres during the five years since the last election. “Perhaps our workers lost the trick somewhere in all this while,” Mishra said.
Given the situation after the second day of counting of more than 600 ZP seats, the BJP has won just 15 seats and are ahead in 19, a far cry from its performance five years back, which led the party to capture eight Lok Sabha seats, mostly in places where it formed the district parishads.
From just one Lok Sabha seat in 2014 to eight in 2019, BJP’s gain was propelled by ZP success. But after the first day’s counting, BJP leaders and workers seem to have seen the writing on the wall.
BJP state president Samir Mohanty said that somewhere the votes the BJP got in various ZP zones didn’t convert into win. “In the 2017 panchayat election, we had 34% vote share. This time also, it will be between 32 and 35%,” Mohanty said.
“But the votes somehow didn’t convert into seats for the BJP. I think the votes the Congress got in 2017, has now gone to the BJD. That could be a major contributing factor,” he added. Mohanty said they will introspect where they went wrong.
In 2017, BJP formed district parishad in western districts of Kalahandi, Balangir, Bargarh, Sambalpur and Mayurbhanj, In all these districts, the Lok Sabha seats also went to the BJP.
Shibadatta Mishra, a BJP candidate, who won zone-17 in Balangir district, attributed the debacle to complacency among the party cadres during the five years since the last election. “Perhaps our workers lost the trick somewhere in all this while,” Mishra said.
,