The 2025 Bihar Assembly election is undoubtedly a high-stakes battle for both the Narendra Modi government and the BJP. Interestingly, little attention is being paid to the upcoming byelection in Odisha’s Nuapada constituency, even though the political ripples from this bitter electoral battle will be no less consequential for the powers in New Delhi.
This is the first election in Odisha since the BJP scripted a surprise victory in June last year, when the state held elections to its legislature, concurrently with the Lok Sabha elections. A win for the BJP in this tribal-dominated constituency will no doubt give a boost to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s fragile and struggling leadership. More so, given that the past 16 months of Majhi’s tenure have been marred by widespread allegations of mis-governance and growing disenchantment amongst the populace in general.
At heart, however, a Majhi victory can confirm for the BJP that it can govern Odisha through its Central leadership. A governance model by which the BJP stamps out factionalism within the party while also ensuring that New Delhi keeps Odisha’s socio-cultural bias for regional identity-based politics in check.
Majhi, a low-profile tribal politician from the mining hub of Keonjhar, was unexpectedly picked for the top job, ignoring the claims of several prominent leaders such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Juel Oram, who have been ministers in the Modi government since 2014. The BJP, it must be noted, is committed to a strong centralised leadership with an almost managerial mindset in running state governments.
On the other hand, the elections in Nuapada would also tell us if Odisha’s popular leader Naveen Patnaik remains relevant for the state and if the Congress party is capable of rebuilding its presence.
The political stakes, consequently, have become so high that both Majhi and Patnaik have twice visited Nuapada in the past week to address public rallies and hold roadshows. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav have been among other high-profile visitors.
MLAs of all parties from other parts of the state, along with their supporters and senior leaders, have also been camping for days in villages across the region. Few bypolls in the country would have seen the electoral blitzkrieg that Nuapada, with just about two and a half lakh voters — mostly impoverished — has witnessed over the past two weeks.
Candidates and the contest
The byelections on Tuesday follow the death of MLA Rajendra Dholakia, a Gujarati businessman-turned-politician of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) who also served as a minister in the previous government. A third-generation immigrant, Dholakia’s philanthropic work had earned him the local people’s affection, helping him win the Nuapada assembly seat four times – first as an independent candidate in 2004 and then as a BJD candidate in 2009, 2019 and 2024.
Upon his death, however, his son, Jay Dholakia, switched to the BJP to become its candidate for the bypolls – a severe blow to the BJD that hadn’t seen it coming. Thirty-odd Sarpanchs and Panchayat Samiti members followed, shifting their loyalty from BJD to BJP.
The BJD was left with no local politician within or outside its ranks who could be chosen for the contest. Ghasiram Majhi, the runner-up in the last elections and a popular tribal leader with a son-of-the-soil tag, had already been taken by the Congress party. The BJD was forced to bring in an outsider, Snehangini Churia, former MLA of neighbouring Attabira constituency.
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Electoral arithmetic
Churia was chosen with the hope that she would find favour with women voters as well as her community — the Dalits who account for 14 per cent of Nuapada’s electorate and constitute the third largest social bloc after tribals (34 per cent) and Yadavs, locally known as Gouds (about 18 per cent).
Oddly enough, even though almost half of the electorate comprises tribal and Dalit votes, Nuapada hasn’t seen either a tribal or a Dalit MLA since 1997. In part, this is because no major party has ever fielded a Dalit candidate in the past, nor has any tribal leader succeeded in rallying the support of Dalit voters.
When Ghasiram Majhi was denied a Congress ticket in the last elections, the tribals united to rally behind him as an independent candidate, but the Dalits didn’t join in. Majhi finished second, and Rajendra Dholakia of BJD won with a lead of about 11,000 votes.
Cut to now, Majhi is back in the Congress as its candidate in the bypolls. To win, he not only needs the overwhelming support of the tribals, but also of the Dalit community, given that the Congress here rarely draws any significant support from other social groups. If Majhi still makes it, Nuapada will have a tribal MLA after a gap of 30 years.
The last time a tribal leader had won the seat was in 1995. Incidentally, his name was also Ghasiram Majhi. The senior Majhi, who had won six terms in office, was a powerful tribal leader and a minister in several governments. He died in 1997.
For the BJD, the back-to-back roadshows by Naveen Patnaik and a well-planned voter outreach by its experienced leaders, pooled from across the state, may have helped overcome the initial loss of momentum, but the challenge remains formidable. Not only has the party struggled to retain its voters in the wake of the sudden defection by Dholakia’s son and his supporters, it has also had to fight the perception of Churia being an outsider.
If Churia does nonetheless win, she will be the first ever Dalit MLA of Nuapada. Her victory will no doubt reinforce Naveen Patnaik’s popularity and re-energise the party rank and file that have somewhat fallen into disarray following the shock defeat in the elections of 2024.
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Advantage BJP?
Since bypolls don’t lead to a change of government, voters often favour a ruling party candidate, just to be on the right side of the power equations. BJP officials are confident that their candidate, Jay Dholakia, would poll more than 65,000 votes, considered enough to win in a triangular contest.
Nuapada has about 2.58 lakh voters, of which at least 75 per cent are expected to show up for voting. In the last election, the BJP polled about 44,814 votes against the 61,822 votes that were then polled by BJD and 50,941 by Ghasiram Majhi, who fought as an independent candidate. The Congress party’s official candidate polled a paltry 15,501 votes.
To emerge as a winner this time around, however, the BJP needs to add at least 20,000 more votes to its 2024 tally. While its votes from the last election appear to be intact, the party is banking on CM Majhi’s ability to capture a section of the tribal vote alongside the pocket votes of Dholakia and supporters who have defected from the BJP to BJD.
It will perhaps be only fair to conclude that Nuapada’s electoral outcome might become the gateway to a new political moment in Odisha.
The author is an independent journalist and former editor of the Press Trust of India. He tweets at @rajeshmahapatra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)