All eyes on Hinjili Assembly seat

Bhubaneswar: With the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha, all eyes are now on Hinjili Assembly constituency in Ganjam district from where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik won five times in a row since 2000.

The Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections in Odisha will be held in four phases on May 13, 20, 25 and June 1. The important Lok Sabha constituencies in the State are Sambalpur, Bhubaneswar, Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj, Puri and Koraput while key Assembly seats are Sambalpur, Chandbali, Jajpur and Jeypore.

1. Hinjili: Naveen Patnaik won the Hinjili Assembly seat five times since 2000. Though Naveen has been elected from the seat in five Assembly polls, there has been a decline in his vote share. In the last three polls held in 2009, 2014 and 2019, the BJD’s vote share was 76 per cent, 73 per cent and 66 per cent.

As Naveen targets to win the seat for the sixth consecutive time, all eyes are on the Hinjili Assembly constituency.

2. Sambalpur: The Sambalpur MP seat is considered important as Sambalpur is the most important town in the western region of the State. This seat was with either BJD or Congress for several decades. However, the BJP captured this seat in 2019 due to the Modi wave last time.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who is a Rajya Sabha member, may contest this time contest from the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate.

3. Bhubaneswar: It is traditionally a BJD stronghold. The party retained the Bhubaneswar seat from 1998 till the 2014 elections. However, BJP candidate and bureaucrat-turned-politician Aparajita Sarangi snatched the seat from the BJD in the last Lok Sabha election.

4. Sundargarh: The Lok Sabha constituency is represented by former Union minister and five-time BJP MP Jual Oram. Except for the 2009 election, Oram won the seat in all the polls held from 1998 to 2019.

Even after ruling the State for about 24 years, the BJD has never won the seat.

5. Puri: This Lok Sabha seat in coastal Odisha is one of the key constituencies in the State as both BJP and BJD are eyeing to grab the prestigious seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

It has been with the BJD since 1998.

The BJP’s face in media, Sambit Patra, had contested from the constituency in 2019 and gave a tough fight to BJD nominee Pinaki Misra. The BJD won the last election with a margin of only 11,714 votes. Patra has been visiting the constituency on a regular basis and attending public programmes there.

6. Koraput: This Lok Sabha constituency in southern Odisha is the only seat where Congress got victory in the 2019 election. Though the Congress party has a stronghold in the constituency, the BJD was able to win the seat in 2009 and 2014.

In the 2019 elections, Congress won the seat defeating BJD by only 3,613 votes.

7. Sambalpur Assembly seat: The Leader of Opposition in Odisha Assembly, Jayanarayan Mishra, won the Sambalpur Assembly constituency in the 2019 elections. The seat has been with the BJP since 2000 except in 2014 when BJD won the seat.

8. Chandbali: This Assembly segment assumes significance in Odisha because it is the home turf of BJP State president Manmohan Samal. Samal unsuccessfully contested from the seat in 2019.

BJD organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das represents the Jajpur constituency in the Assembly. The MLA seat has been with the BJD since 2000.