The Brajarajnagar constituency in the Jharsuguda district of Odisha went to polls on April 19, 2024. Over 3.32 crore voters in the state were eligible to exercise their franchise in the Legislative Assembly elections this year, which are being held alongside the Lok Sabha elections. Odisha voted in four phases—May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1, which coincided with phases 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the Lok Sabha elections.
The term of the 147-member Legislative Assembly is slated to end on June 24, 2024.
What happened in the 2019 Legislative Assembly elections?
Brajarajnagar is one of the 113 Assembly seats won by the BJD in the 2019 Legislative Assembly elections.
In the 2019 elections, Brajarajnagar constituency had 211269 voters, and saw a voter turnout of 77.2 %.
BJD candidate Kishore Kumar Mohanty won the Brajarajnagar constituency in the 2019 elections, with a margin of 11634 votes.
In the 2019 Legislative Assembly elections in Odisha, the BJD swept the polls, helping Naveen Patnaik secure a fifth consecutive term as the Chief Minister of the state.
While the BJP also contested all seats in the state, the saffron party could win only 23. The Congress, meanwhile, won a mere nine seats, despite contesting 138 seats. That being said, the 2019 Assembly polls in Odisha saw the BJP experience a notable surge in its vote share, with the saffron party's share of votes rising from 18% in 2014 to over 30% in 2019. One of the seats not won by the BJD, BJP, or the Congress went to the CPI(M), while the remaining seat was won by an independent candidate.
Polling was not held in the Patkura seat during the Assembly polls owing to the passing of the sitting MLA. However, in the bypolls held later in July 2019, the BJD won the seat by a comfortable margin of victory.