New Delhi: Upbeat over Congress’ turnaround in Telangana in exit polls, party managers are now keen to implement the revival strategy in neighbouring Odisha where the grand old party is currently the third player after ruling BJD and opposition BJP. Accordingly, the Congress is planning a major rally to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi in western Odisha this month and will follow it up with public meetings of party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
It may be recalled that Kharge, Rahul and Priyanka led the Telangana campaign. “Congress is likely to make a remarkable comeback in Telangana as per exit polls. If the party wins in Telangana it will certainly impact the bordering areas of Odisha and beyond. We believe that Odisha is a fertile ground for the party and if we launch an aggressive campaign, revival is possible,” AICC in-charge of Odisha Chella Kumar told ETV Bharat.
“We are planning a massive rally in December to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi in the western parts of Odisha where the Congress still has a lot of ground-level presence. The rally could be in Koraput or some nearby place. We have also requested Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to address separate rallies. We plan to schedule the rallies of three top leaders in a series this month. That will give us a big start,” he said.
According to the AICC in-charge, the state unit will launch a series of agitational programmes targeting the BJD government after Rahul’s rally sets the tone for the 2024 national campaign. “Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik depends a lot on the bureaucracy to run his government. The district and tehsil level officials behave as functionaries of the BJD. As a result, development has suffered. We are going to oppose that,” said Chella Kumar.
Recently, when civil servant and secretary to Chief Minister VK Pandian took VRS and joined the BJD, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh noted that the former IAS officer had been running the state like a CEO while Naveen Patnaik became an absentee landlord. Odisha Congress Legislative Party leader Narasingha Mishra echoed similar sentiments.
“Till last year, no one was talking about Congress in Telangana. But today we are going to form a government there. In politics, things can change over a short period and we can repeat it here also. We have already taken up the issues related to opening all four gates of the Puri temple, as devotees are facing inconvenience while going to sanctum santorum from one gate to have darshan of the Lord,” Narasingha Mishra told ETV Bharat.
“The Congress has been down since 2019 and reached the number three position, but we ruled the state a few decades ago. We can revive the party in the state,” he said. According to party insiders, the AICC has changed state leadership a few times over the past years, but without much success as local leaders lacked aggression and the party workers became dormant due to a lack of strong organisation.
“Organisation is a concern, but more than that we need to charge up the workers and activate them. Changing the state leadership is not a solution. We recently launched a movement to return occupied land to the tillers to restore the balance and empower the farmers. We need to launch more such programmes. I have discussed the same with Kharge recently,” said Chella Kumar.
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