Naveen Patnaik

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 4: The BJD today retained the Umerkote Assembly seat with its candidate Subhash Gond defeating his nearest BJP rival by 21,061 votes.

While the BJD’s victory was expected with senior leaders including chief minister Naveen Patnaik having turned it into a prestige issue, the outcome has given the BJP, his former ally, a boost with its candidate Dharmu Gond polling 33,652 votes leaving Congress with 32,877 at the third spot.

The result was most significant for the BJP that was gasping for breath after its debacle in the 2009 elections when Naveen had decided to dump his alliance partner of 10 years. Though senior BJP leaders such as former state unit president Suresh Pujari said the party would review its performance in Umerkote soon, there was a sense of quiet relief in the saffron ranks.

“We may be a little disappointed, but there is no denying that there is a positive side to the outcome in Umerkote. With this, we have bounced back into political reckoning in the state. Our political respectability has been restored,” said a senior leader. Some other leaders felt that the party would have fared better had BJP patriarch L.K. Advani not shied away from attacking chief minister Naveen Patnaik on the corruption issue during his recent visit to the state.

The BJP bit dust in 2009 with just six Assembly seats. Down in the dumps, the party, for the last two years, has been struggling to revive its sagging fortunes but so far has achieved little success. Umerkote may be the turning point for the party, said sources.

The BJP’s turnaround would, however, be at the cost of the Congress, the main Opposition party which, contrary to expectations, failed to grab even the second spot. The party candidate, Jatindra Gond, could manage only 32,877 votes despite high voltage campaigning by Pradesh Congress Committee chief Niranjan Patnaik and former Union minister Jagdish Tytler who is in charge of the party’s affairs in Odisha.

“They may have won but we have managed to get 8,900 more votes compared to the last elections. We will look into what went wrong,” said Patnaik, trying to put up a brave face. This was the first time he was leading the party in an Assembly election.

For the BJD, the result was significant because it came ahead of the panchayat polls due early next year. Hoping that the victory would send the right message to the electorate, chief minister Naveen Patnaik congratulated the people of Umerkote for reposing faith in his party and the government.

“We will continue to work hard for the people of the state,” he said.

In spite of the area being Maoist-affected, high-profile campaigning by all the three serious contenders — BJD, BJP and the Congress — marked this by-election.

The Congress had planned to bring in Bollywood actresses Mahima Choudhury to campaign for the party in Umerkote and when that did not work out, it tried to bring in Madhuri Dixit and actor Govinda. On the other hand, the BJP, too, had planned to draft Hema Malini and Smriti Irani into the campaign. However, none of these plans worked for either parties.

Eventually, Odia actor-turned MP Siddhant Mohapatra, who campaigned for the BJD, had the last laugh.