Bhubaneswar: The newly-elected Odisha Assembly will have many new faces, with most of them being young politicians.
The one newcomer legislator who is drawing the most attention from the public is giant killer Laxman Bag, who became an overnight celebrity by defeating five-time Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik from the Kantabanji Assembly constituency by a margin of over 16,000 votes.
Situated in western Odisha’s Bolangir district, Kantabanji was the second seat from where Patnaik contested besides his traditional constituency of Hinjili in Ganjam.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
From a daily wage labourer to a giant killer
The 48-year-old Bag once eked out a living as a daily wager in labour migration-prone Kantabanji. He had previously tried his luck unsuccessfully from the constituency twice in 2014 and 2019.
The BJP leader won convincingly this time by shaping his campaign around important issues such as poverty, unemployment and migration of labour from the area which is close to Chhattisgarh. Bag was also helped by Patnaik’s overconfidence, with the CM hardly campaigning in Kantabanji.
While getting the better of a Chief Minister who had ruled the state for 24 years without a break was an achievement in itself, it was Bag’s victory margin–16,344 votes–which stunned even his own party leaders.
Another first timer who won big was BJP’s Durga Prasanna Nayak, who defeated Biju Janata Dal (BJD) heavyweight and minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak by a margin of over 33,000 votes.
Though a novice compared to Atanu, the BJP leader, who is known to be a good organiser, succeeded in luring away Bengali settlers who had traditionally voted for the BJD in the coastal constituency criss-crossed by rivers and creeks.
Another newbie, Sitansu Sekhar Mohapatra, who contested from the Bhadrak Assembly segment as a BJP candidate, trounced BJD veteran and former minister Prafulla Samal by a margin of over 16,000 votes. The 2024 election was supposed to be the swan song of Samal, one of the founding members of BJD, but it seems to have gone horribly wrong for him, mainly due to Sitansu’s well-orchestrated campaign.
In Puri, newcomer Sunil Kumar Mohanty of BJD won a tough battle against the BJP’s sitting MLA Jayanta Kumar Sarangi by a margin of over 5,000 votes. Son of former Odisha assembly speaker and minister Maheshwar Mohanty, who won the Puri seat several times in his long political career, Sunil had to sweat it out in the absence of his father. Mohanty’s victory is significant considering the saffron surge which swept Odisha, with the BJP winning on the majority of seats.
Similarly, Aravind Mohapatra, son of former minister Bijoy Mohapatra, contested and won the Patkura assembly seat on a BJD ticket defeating BJP’s Tejeswar Parida by over 13,000 votes. Aravind, thus, fulfilled the dream of his father who, after representing Patkura four times in a row from 1980 to 1995, had failed to win the seat again.
Also Read-Decoding BJP’s Odisha Win: ‘Overconfident’ Naveen Patnaik, Modi’s Aggressive Campaigning
Among other first-time legislators to make their mark were BJD’s Goutam Budhha Das, who contested and won the Bhograi Assembly seat in Balasore, district defeating his nearest rival Satya Shiba Das of Congress by 6,564 votes. Similarly, debutant Amarendra Das tasted victory on the prestigious Jagatsinghpur assembly seat as a BJP candidate. He defeated BJD veteran Prasanta Kumar Muduli by a margin of 22,138 votes.
Women candidates from political families script victory
Among the women first-time MLAs, the most prominent name is that of Sofia Firdous, who contested the Cuttack-Barabati seat on a Congress ticket and defeated the BJP’s Purna Chandra Mahapatra by 8,000 votes.
A civil engineer and director of a real estate firm, 32-year-old Sofia replaced her father Mohammad Moquim on the seat as the Supreme Court had refused to stay the latter’s conviction in a loan fraud case. Last year, Sofia was elected the president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI), Bhubaneswar chapter. Keeping her father’s fortress intact will now be her responsibility.
Another daughter to make her mark on her debut in these elections is Upasna Mohapatra who won the Brahmagiri Assembly seat on a BJP ticket, defeating her nearest rival Umakanta Samantaray of the BJD by 9,830 votes. Upasana is the daughter of late Congress veteran Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra aka Lulu.
Brahmagiri once used to be her father’s pocket-borough, then it switched allegiance and went BJD’s way. In the last elections the seat was won by Upasana’s uncle, former cricketer Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra as the saffron party candidate. Now Upasana has taken charge of the constituency.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.
