PM meets Odisha BJP MPs in Parliament

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Odisha BJP MPs in Parliament on Monday to discuss regional issues and development plans.

The Bharatiya Janata Party clinched 20 out of 21 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, marking a significant gain of 12 seats from their 2019 performance.

Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) failed to secure even a single seat, a drastic fall from the 12 seats they had won in the 2019 elections. During the campaign, the BJP capitalised on Patnaik’s declining health and anti-incumbency sentiments, also leveraging V K Pandian’s outsider status to attract Odia voters.

The BJP highlighted the success of its double-engine government in other States to persuade voters to elect them in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The party succeeded in securing a comfortable majority in the Assembly elections, winning 78 out of 147 seats.

The BJD managed to capture 51 seats, falling short of the 74-seat majority mark, while the Congress took 14 seats.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP secured 20 seats with the Congress winning the remaining one. This crushing defeat ended the BJD’s 24-year reign of Odisha, with BJP’s Mohan Charan Majhi being sworn in as the Chief Minister on June 12.

The Biju Janata Dal had governed Odisha continuously since 1997 until the watershed election results in 2024.