Bhubaneswar: After the poor performance of the party in the recently held panchayat and urban polls, a section of Odisha Congress MLAs want a change of guard in the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) much ahead of the 2024 general elections for Lok Sabha and state assembly. Of the nine Congress MLAs in the state, Taraprasad Bahinipati, S S Saluja, Adhiraj Panigrahi and Mohammed Moqium have expressed concern over the party's present and future situation seeking certain changes in the lead through all of them claimed that they are not opposed to the existing OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik.
We are not opposed to Niranjan Patnaik, but the party must survive and all agree that the organisation should come out of the present situation. An alternative leadership should be installed which could pull out the party, Panigrahi, a lawmaker from Khariar said. Jeypore MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati and Jatni MLA Suresh Routray, known for their loyalty to Niranjan Patnaik, also insisted on a change of guard in the OPCC. Niranjan Babu is becoming ill whenever there is an election. Therefore, a new and strong leadership should be installed in Odisha, Bahinipati said.
Routray while supporting the idea of a change of guard in the OPCC, said that the party leadership should now back candidates with resources during elections in order to counter the rivals. The OPCC president should provide logistics to the candidates fighting against the mighty BJD and BJP, Routray said. Kantabanji MLA Santosh Singh Saluja also pointed out that the party candidates who won the rural and urban polls got the victory for their personal efforts. If the party supports the candidates, more people will certainly win, he said.
Congress which ruled Odisha for decades till Naveen Patnaik's BJD government was installed in 2000, however, was pushed to third place in state politics after the 2019 elections. The BJP replaced Congress as the state's main opposition party. In the urban polls, Congress could secure only 12 percent of the vote and won only 7 chairpersons seats as against its previous performance of 13 seats in 2013-14 polls. The BJP on the other hand secured 16 chairpersons seats while the ruling Biju Janata Dal gained 73 seats along with three Mayors in municipal corporations of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, and Berhampur.
What has come as a shock for the OPCC is that all its candidates failed to open accounts in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation election while its mayor candidate lost the deposit. Only one party candidate won in Berhampur Municipal Corporation having 42 corporate posts. The Congress candidates could manage to win eight of the 59 posts in the Cuttack Municipal Corporation. Of the total 1,716 councillor posts across the state, the party bagged 134, State Election Commission (SEC), Odisha sources said.
In three-tier panchayat elections held in February, Congress candidates won only 37 Zilla Parishad seats of the total 852 seats. The BJD on the other hand won 766 seats and BJP bagged 42 seats. In the 2017 panchayat elections, Congress had won 60 seats. The grand old party has been losing its vote share since 2000 and its ratio falling with every election. The Congress vote share in 2000 was 35 percent and in the 2019 Assembly polls it came down to 16.12 percent votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Congress secured 13.81 percent of the votes against 26.38 percent in 2014.
In all the by-elections held since 2019, the Congress candidates have lost their deposits in all places except at Tirtol. OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik, however, said that he had tendered his resignation from the PCC chief post after the 2019 debacle. However, the AICC was yet to accept it. He, however, said that efforts are on strengthening the party at the grassroots level.
Since 2000, Congress has changed the OPCC president nine times, but all of them failed to revive the organization. Niranjan Patnaik has been OPCC chief twice, first from 2011 to 2013 and he continues in the post since April 2018, party sources said.
PTI
