BHUBANESWAR: As the final results of the panchayat polls have already been announced, the focus now has shifted to urban body polls to be held on March 24. Filing of nomination papers for all the 109 urban local bodies (ULBs) will start from Wednesday.
Like the panchayat elections, the ruling BJD has already positioned observers and senior leaders in each of these urban bodies which will go to polls this time. Urban body polls will be held in the State after a delay of more than two years. This time too, there will be no reservation of seats for the other backward classes (OBCs) as the State government is yet to comply with the triple test of the Supreme Court.
But the ULB polls will be different from the panchayat polls as the BJD is not much well placed in urban areas. The scenario changed after the 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections as the BJP was ahead of the ruling BJD in 89 urban pockets, not constituencies. Besides, the BJP had also won the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat under which the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation falls.
Congress had also bagged the Koraput Lok Sabha seat under which several ULBs like Rayagada, Parlakhemundi, Jeypore, Koraput and Malkangiri fall. Besides, the BJP had won elections from as many 14 urban Assembly constituencies followed by eight of the Congress while an Independent had won from Rayagada seat in 2019 elections.
The urban Assembly seats won by the BJP were Malkangiri, Parlakhemundi, Puri, Bhawanipatna, Umerkote, Dhamnagar, Baripada, Rairangpur, Keonjhar, Deogarh, Sambalpur, Rengali, Biramitrapur and Sundargarh. Similarly, Congress candidates had won from Jeypore, Mohana, Jatni, Barabati-Cuttack, Khariar, Kantabanji, Balangir and Rajgangpur seats.
Sources maintained that urban polls will be difficult for the BJD compared to the panchayat polls. The Opposition BJP and Congress have strong pockets of influence in many urban areas and it will be difficult for BJD to dislodge them. However, the last major ULB polls were held on September 19, 2013 in which the BJD had swept the elections by winning a clear majority in as many as 44 out of the 66 urban bodies. The Congress won from 12 while the BJP could win from only one ULB. In the rest, no party had attained a clear majority. Elections were held to the rest of the ULBs in phases till 2016.