Editing Utkal Congress (section)

== Electoral history ==

Biju Patnaik resigned from Congress(R) on 6 April 1970. Following that he along with his colleagues [[Nilamani Routray]] formed the state based party in the model of [[Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam|DMK]]. This fledgling party Fought its first election soon after in [[1971 Indian general election|1971 General elections]]. It secured 24% votes and 32 seats.<ref name="Grover 1997 p. 453">{{cite book | last=Grover | first=V. | title=Indian Political System: Trends and Challenges | publisher=Deep & Deep Publications | issue=v. 10 | year=1997 | isbn=978-81-7100-883-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M4yABACTXw4C&pg=PA462 | access-date=2019-07-01 | page=453}}</ref> It formed a coalition with [[Swatantra Party]] and formed a government under leadership [[Bishwanath Das]]. This government did not last for long and few of the Utkal Congress members wanted to go back to Congress(I) (Congress(R) had named itself Congress (I) at this point). So a Congress(I) government under the leadership of [[Nandini Satpathy]] formed. However this government did not last long either. There was an [[1974 Odisha Legislative Assembly election|election in 1974 to Odisha legislature]]. Utkal Congress formed a coalition with Swatatantra party and a group of Congress (I) members led by Harekrushna Mahtab called [[Pragati Legislature Party|Pragati Legislature party]]. In the election Utkal Congress slightly increased it tally to 35 seats. However Congress won the majority. At the end of 1974 all the constituents of Pragati Legislature party merged with [[Charan Singh]] led Bharatiya Lok Dal.<ref name="Das & Dr. C. P Nanda p. 121">{{cite book | last=Das & Dr. C. P Nanda | first=P.M.N. | title=Harekrushna Mahtab | year=2001 | publisher=Publications Division Ministry of Information & Broadcasting | isbn=978-81-230-2325-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SR7iDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT121 | language=en | access-date=2019-07-01 | page=121}}</ref>