1961 Odisha Legislative Assembly election

1961
All 140 seats in the Odisha Legislative Assembly 71 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Biju Patnaik Party INC Ganatantra Parishad Leader's seat Choudwar - Seats won 82 37 Seat change 26 14 Popular vote 12,69,000 6,55,099 Percentage 43.28 28.74 Swing 5.02 1.51
Chief Minister before election Vacant President's rule Elected Chief Minister Biju Patnaik INC

Elections to the Third Odisha Legislative Assembly were held 1961.^[1]

Constituencies

The elections were held for 140 constituencies, of which 25 were reserved for Scheduled Castes, 29 for Scheduled Tribes and 86 unreserved.

Contesting parties

There are three national parties (the Communist Party of India, Congress and the Praja Socialist Party), one state party (Ganatantra Parishad), one registered unrecognised party (Jharkhand Party) and some Independent Politicians. All took part in this assembly election. The Congress party emerged again as the winner by winning 58% of the seats with a vote share of 43.28%.^[2] The post of Chief Minister saw successive replacements during this period.Biju Patnaik became the Chief Minister of Odisha and remained in power till 1963, before being replaced by Biren Mitra, and finally by Sadashiva Tripathy.

Results

Summary of results of the 1961 Odisha Legislative Assembly election^[3]

Party		Flag	Seats Contested	Won	Net Change in seats	% of Seats	Votes	Vote %	Change in vote %
	Indian National Congress		140	82	26	58.57	12,69,000	43.28	5.02
	Ganatantra Parishad		121	37	14	26.42	6,55,099	27.23	1.51
	Praja Socialist Party		43	10	1	7.14	3,22,305	30.43	20.03
	Communist Party of India		35	4	5	3.57	2,33,971	27.32	18.92
	Jharkhand Party		9	0	"New"	0	25,602	13.57	"New"
	Independent		187	7	6	5	4,26,302	20.89	N/A
			Total Seats	140 ( 0)	Voters	85,51,743	Turnout	31,27,245 (36.57%)

Elected members

References