Berhampur, Oct 30: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has witnessed a rapid growth in Ganjam district over the last three decades.
The saffron party had fielded candidates in five assembly constituencies of the district in 1985 and got 0.64 percent vote. However, the party fielded its candidates in all 13 constituencies in 2019 and stood second by getting 35.3 percent vote.
The BJP had not witnessed any significant organisational growth despite winning of Anant Narayan Sigh Deo from Surada constituency in 1995, Ram Chandra Panda from Chhatrapur in 2000 and Kishore Chandra Singh Deo from Surada in 2004.
The saffron party secured 0.64 percent vote in the district by fielding five candidates in 1985, 1.37 percent in 1990 by fielding four candidates and 5.32 percent from 11 seats in 1995.
While having alliance with the BJD, the party fielded two candidates in the district in 2000 and 2004 Assembly elections and secured 7.96 percent and 8.15 percent vote respectively.
Similarly, the party managed to secure only 9.94 percent vote fielding candidates in all the constituencies of the district in 2009 after parting ways from the BJD.
The vote percent witnessed a marginal growth in 2014 and stood at 10.75 percent.
However, the party emerged second in 2019 with 35.3 percent vote. The party gave tough fight to BJD at Bhanjanagar, Surada, Aska, Khallikote, Chhatrapur, Gopalpur, Chikiti and Polsara constituencies.
Besides, the party won chairman posts in Chhatrapur, Rambha and Kodala out of 16 NACs of Ganjam district. The BJP has 43 seats out of 282 councilors in the district. The party also won in seven seats out of 42 wards of Berhampur Municipal Corporation.
