Bhubaneswar: Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday resigned Chief Minister of Odisha following the defeat of BJD in the Assembly polls, the result of which was announced on Tuesday. He submitted his resignation to Governor Raghubar Das.
Curtains came down on the 24-year rule of BJD in Odisha as the party was reduced to 51 seats from 112 in 2019, which it had improved to 113 by winning the by-elections to Balasore. The BJP got majority by winning 78 seats in the 147-member House, an increase of 55 seats since last polls, while Congress improved its tally to 14 from 9 in 2019.
Three BJP rebels, who contested as independent, also won from their respective constituencies, while CPI (M)’s Laxman Munda managed to retain his Bonai seat.
The BJD suffered its biggest setback in Kantabanji, where the BJD supremo and Chief Minister lost to BJP’s Laxman Bag by a margin of over 16,000 votes. Naveen won in his stronghold Hinjili but the victory margin was reduced to a mere 4,636 from tens of thousands in the past five elections. He had never lost since he first fought the assembly polls in 2000.
In total, 52 MLAs of the ruling party faced defeat in the recently concluded election to the state Legislative Assembly. BJP’s landmark victory also thwarted the party’s ambition to see Naveen as the longest-serving CM in India, a milestone he would have reached by August this year.