Congress finally wins a majority
What happened
Congress won a majority of its own this time, well clear of the opposition.
The Indian National Congress won 82 of the 140 seats.
That was 11 seats more than it needed for a majority.
Its nearest rival, the Ganatantra Parishad, won 37 seats.
What changed
This election saw a wide swing in results across the state, with many seats changing hands from the previous vote.
66 of the 140 constituencies elected a different party than they had in 1957.
The biggest single shift ran from the GP to the INC, which picked up 16 of those seats.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that count stand out.
The tightest finish anywhere was Ranpur, Odisha, decided by just 5 votes — the narrowest margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second, of any seat that year.
At the other extreme, Hinjili, Odisha produced the widest margin of the election, with the winner finishing 76.6% ahead of the runner-up.
Boudh (Sc), Odisha was the state's biggest constituency by registered voters, with 79,622 names on the electoral roll.
The most crowded contest was Nayagarh, Odisha, where 8 candidates stood for one seat.
The backdrop
By this point, Congress and the former princely-state bloc were the assembly's main rivals.
The Ganatantra Parishad, formed in October 1950 by former Orissa princely-state rulers under Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo, was Orissa's main opposition party through the 1950s, briefly forming a coalition government with Congress from May 1959 to February 1961. After the 1962 general election it merged into the Orissa unit of the Swatantra Party.
The GP remained the clearest opposition voice, even as Congress pulled further ahead.