Bhubaneswar, April 8: The ruling BJD today reasserted its electoral dominance in the state by winning all the eight civic bodies that went to polls yesterday.

The spectacular performance of the party in Paradip, Sunabeda and Belpahar municipalities and Balimela, Dharmagada, Tusara, Daspalla and Rairakhol notified area councils made it clear that chief minister Naveen Patnaik's appeal among voters remains undiminished despite scams and scandals rocking his government.

The BJD won absolute majority in all the eight civic bodies as the Congress and the BJP fell by the wayside. Of the total 129 wards, the BJD won 103 seats (79.84%) while the Congress and the BJP bagged 11 (8.52%) and 12 seats (9.3%), respectively. Three seats went to independent candidates.

The results show that while the downslide of the Congress, the main Opposition in the state, continues, the BJP's gamble of seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to pay off. The so-called Modi factor just did not work.

While the ruling party captured the prestigious Paradip municipality bagging 16 of the 19 seats at stake, it also came up trumps in Belpahar and Sunabeda, the two other major urban local bodies (ULBs) that went to the polls yesterday, winning 16 and 18 seats, respectively. The Congress and BJP were left far behind.

For the BJD, which remains by and large a Naveen-centric party, this is its second successive victory in the civic polls in as many years. In 2013, it had swept the polls held in 86 urban local bodies in two phases capturing 63 of them.

While Naveen thanked the voters for their overwhelming support to his party, state Congress chief Prasad Harichandan described the outcome as disappointing.

"It is not to our expectations. We will review the results," he quipped reflecting on the verdict that is certain to expose him to attacks from dissidents as these were the first elections the party contested under his leadership.

State BJP president Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo admitted that his party needed to work harder but refused to credit the ruling party for its victory alleging that money had played a big role in the elections. "I have never seen helicopters being used in urban polls," said Singh Deo, referring to the use of choppers by BJD campaigners, including film star-turned-politicians Anubhav Mohanty and Akash Das Nayak.

There is, though, no denying the feeling of disappointment in the BJP that had pinned great hopes on Modi magic, more so since polling for the eight civic bodies was held in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one-day visit to the state on April 1.