New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday said it is in the process of finalizing a new team in Odisha which will be announced soon. “We have held consultations with the state leaders over the new team. Our general secretary in charge Dr. Chella Kumar will meet party president Sonia Gandhi in the next few days. The decision will be taken soon,” AICC secretary in charge of Odisha G Rudra Raju told ETV Bharat.
Raju said the focus of the new team would be on the 2024 national elections. According to party leaders, state unit chief Niranjan Patnaik, (78) who got the charge in 2018, had submitted his resignation in 2019 following the poor show in the national and state elections to facilitate the change of guard but the party could not take up the issue till date.
Sources said the state Congress has been down since the 2019 polls when the BJP replaced the grand old party as the main opposition. Among the names being considered for the top party post in the state include former state unit chief Sarat Patnaik, Cuttack-Barabati MLA Mohammad Moquim, and Bhakta Charan Das, who is currently in AICC general secretary in charge of Bihar.
A section of leaders has demanded that the new state unit chief be made from amongst the party MLAs, while the others think that different persons should hold the charge as PCC chief and CLP leader. Incumbent CLP leader Narasingha Mishra is often under attack from his party colleagues for not being aggressive against the BJD government. Hence, there is a demand for a new party leader in the assembly as well, said the sources.
Party insiders said the new team will be selected on the basis of performance but acknowledged that they are going to face an uphill task in reviving the grand old party in the coastal state. The party insiders cited the party’s poor show in the recently-concluded local body and panchayat elections as an example.
In the civic elections held in March, Congress could win only seven out of the 108 urban local bodies (ULBs). The party drew a blank in the capital Bhubaneswar and got just one out of 42 seats in Berhampur and eight 59 seats in Cuttack. Interestingly, the emergence of the BJP in Odisha had started in 2017 when the saffron party showed good results in the local body polls across the state, surprising the Congress managers, who remained complacent. Now the Congress leaders are suggesting having four working presidents to have a better representation across the state but those opposed to this view cite the case of former MP Pradeep Majhi, who was made a working president but shifted to the BJD last year.
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