Aam Admi Party (AAP) has failed to take off in Odisha with its candidates making no impact in both Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
AAP candidates had contested in 106 out of 147 assembly seats in the State. However, 58 of 106 candidates could not garner more than 1,000 votes. Many candidates have got less than 300 votes.
In Aul assembly segment in Kendrapara district, Soumya Ranjan Dhal of AAP secured 248 votes whereas Congress candidate Debendra Sharma, who won the seat, polled 81,254 votes. Similarly, in Chandbali and Basudebpur, AAP candidate got 257 and 276 votes respectively.
Only seven candidates were able to cross the 2000 mark in the assembly election.
Ajay Kumar Das in Kantabanji assembly seat in Bolangir district seems to be the only saving grace for the new party. Although he was not in the top three candidates in the seat, the AAP candidate got 20,333 votes. In neighbouring, Patnagarh constituency, Sunil Goel secured 5,588 votes. Only these two candidates of AAP had managed votes in excess of 5,000.
Urban areasIronically, AAP has failed to make an impact in urban areas like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela, where it had claimed to have good support base. The performance in Lok Sabha election is even worse. Lingaraj Pradhan, AAP’s face in Odisha who was considered to have realistic chance of winning the election, finished sixth with 15,672 votes in Bargarh Lok Sabha seat whereas the winning BJD candidate secured 38,3320 votes, 24 times of AAP votes.
The party had fielded candidates in 18 out of 21 seats. Only three candidates got more than 10,000 votes. In Balasore, the AAP candidate got 2,664.
AAP got fewer votes than that of ‘None Of The Above’ option. In Lok Sabha election, 3,32,780 voteers opted for NOTA in comparison to 1,47,898 for AAP. Situation was somewhat similar in Assembly election. AAP’s vote share in Assembly election is 0.6 per cent whereas NOTA’s share constitutes 1.3 per cent. In fact, AAP’s vote shares in both Assembly and Lok Sabha election was not even 1 per cent of total votes polled in the State.
When asked about the debacle in the simultaneous elections, Nishikant Mohapatra, State Convenor of AAP, said, “we were hit by fund-crunch and inadequate logistic support. The party could spend Rs. 17 lakh in the election and candidates were asked to mobilize resources for themselves.”
“Moreover, the party had not done enough work in Odisha to reap electoral benefits. We have 2 lakh registered members but our votes were limited to below 1.5 lakh,” Mr. Mohapatra said.
