Bhubaneswar: When a debate is raging over the impact of Modi tsunami in Odisha 2019 polls, hard statistics speaks a lot.
Virtually delivering a sort of warning shot to the BJD, the Bhartiya Janata Party riding on Modi wave has seen a massive surge in its vote share in Odisha 2019 parliamentary polls. And the upsurge has dented vote shares of both the ruling BJD and Congress.
According to the election statistics available with the ECI, the BJP, which had garnered around 21.5 per cent votes in 2014, has polled a high of 38.4 per cent votes in 2019 Lok Sabha (LS) polls.
When the saffron party has seen a huge 16.9 per cent swing in its favour in 2019, the ruling BJD witnessed a marginal drop in its vote share by around 1.3 per cent.
But the big fact is this is for the first time since its inception, the ruling BJD has recorded a drop in its vote share. BJD's vote share in 2004 LS polls was around 30 per cent, it grew to 37.2 per cent in 2009 and zoomed to 44.1 per cent in 2014.
The Congress party has lost a high of 12.2 per cent vote share in 2019. The grand old party could garner a mere 13.8 per cent votes in 2019 LS polls vis-a-vis of 26 per cent in 2014. The vote share of the party in 2004 was around 40 per cent.
Another interesting comparative analysis of Congress party's vote share is the party received nearly over 3 per cent more votes in 2019 assembly polls vis-a-vis votes polled in 2019 LS polls. The vote share of Congress party in assembly polls in 2019 is at around 16 per cent.
This reveals how Modi factor weighs high on even congress voters psyche in Odisha in 2019. The party received nearly 3 per cent less votes in LS polls than the assembly polls. This hard fact shows many congress assembly voters have voted in favour of Modi in Odisha LS polls.
The above analysis makes another big revelation. Significantly, the BJP has received more votes from the first-time voters in Odisha. While the BJD's vote loss is around 1.3 per cent, the loss in Congress account was around 12.2 per cent. The total vote loss by the rivals was around 14 per cent. In contrast, BJP gained a whopping 16.9 per cent more votes. The surplus 2 per cent votes polled by BJP are the new voters.
The significant reminder here is voter turnout has not taken a big rise in polls 2019 vis-a-vis 2014 LS polls. The poll percentage was more or less the same in 2019, which explains the inference of the analysis that BJP drew more first time voters than its rivals.