Odisha assembly polls will be held in four phases from May 13

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Saturday that elections to Odisha assembly will be held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.

Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases beginning on April 19 and results will be announced on June 4. “The other phases will be on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim will be held on April 19, and in Andhra Pradesh on May 13,” he said.

Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 assembly constituencies. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won 12 seats, while the BJP got eight and the Congress secured one. In the assembly elections the same year, the BJD bagged 112 seats, while the BJP won 23, and the Congress got nine.

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The alliance between BJD and the BJP has proven successful in two assembly elections and three Lok Sabha polls in Odisha. Formed in February 1998, this partnership has built a robust foundation over the years. Both parties achieved victory in Lok Sabha elections in 1998, 1999, and 2004, as well as in Assembly elections in 2000 and 2004.

According to a recent opinion poll conducted by News18, NDA is expected to secure 12 out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats from Odisha, while the I.N.D.I.A. bloc is expected to draw a blank. BJD is seen getting eight seats. At least 4,418 respondents expressed satisfaction with the performance of the central government and the Prime Minister over the past five years, according to opinion poll.

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Among the participants, 57 per cent expressed satisfaction, with 42 per cent indicating they were very satisfied and 15 per cent somewhat satisfied. In contrast, 29 per cent expressed dissatisfaction, with 17 per cent somewhat dissatisfied and 12 per cent very dissatisfied. Interestingly, 14 per cent of the respondents remained neutral, expressing neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction.

The BJP secured an impressive 37.36 per cent of the votes in 2019 across the country, the highest vote share obtained by any political party in India since the 1989 general election.

The BJP alone secured 303 seats, with the final tally reached to 353 seats for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In contrast, the Indian National Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, secured 52 seats, with the party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) achieving a total of 98 seats.

The Election Commission has announced that approximately 97 crore Indians will be eligible to vote in this year’s Lok Sabha elections, marking a 6 percent increase in registered voters since 2019. The electoral rolls were published nationwide in early February following an intensive Special Summary Revision 2024 process.

Efforts are currently in progress to assess the possibility of conducting simultaneous elections throughout India.