Till recently, the contest was seen as one between BJD and Congress

Even though the date of counting is almost four weeks away and uncertainty prevails over outcome of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls held in Odisha, the issue is now being discussed at almost every place across the State primarily because the elections were held simultaneously.

The issue is being discussed from various angles since many people had resorted to split ticket voting and political pundits and politicians are finding it hard to arrive at a conclusion.

Interaction with a large number of voters revealed that they had voted for one party to choose their Lok Sabha Member but for a different party to elect their legislator for the Assembly.

In fact, the situation was not so confusing till a few weeks before the polls. The general perception then was that the main contest will be between the ruling Biju Janata Dal and main opposition Congress in almost every Lok Sabha and Assembly constituency. Even opinion polls had made forecast on those lines.

But the scenario has apparently changed when BJP’s Prime Ministerial nominee Narendra Modi visited the State thrice to address election rallies. Soon the saffron party, which had not won even a single Lok Sabha seat and only six Assembly seats in the 2009 election, was viewed as a major contender in a majority of Lok Sabha constituencies and many Assembly segments in different regions of the State.

The sudden emergence of the BJP as a major contender for as many as four Lok Sabha seats in western, and many seats in northern and coastal Odisha, forced media houses to conduct a fresh round of opinion poll. The State has 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats.

The high voter turnout in both phases of polling in the State had also added to the speculation over the poll outcome. The State recorded a turnout of 74.3 per cent in this election, against 65.3 per cent in 2009, when elections for Lok Sabha and Assembly were also held simultaneously.

The ruling party leaders were hopeful that their party will perform well in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, with the expectation that the anti-BJD votes would be divided among the Congress, the BJP, independents and other parties, while the BJP leaders were hoping for a miracle performance.

As regards the Congress, though many party leaders were not sure of winning as many Lok Sabha seats as they had did in 2009, they were hopeful of winning more Assembly seats than last year. The party had won six Lok Sabha and 27 Assembly seats in 2009.

While it is being observed that BJP is likely to perform better than Congress with regard to the Lok Sabha poll, the workers of the faction-ridden Congress are lamenting that they could have done much better in the Assembly poll had their party been able to take advantage of the anti-incumbency factor that existed against the ruling BJD.