Congress bucks up to put Odisha house in order before polls

The fear of exodus of cadre from its Odisha unit has prompted the Congress to step up efforts to address dissent and strengthen its organisational structure ahead of the 2019 assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

In the past few weeks, Congress leaders, including general secretary in-charge of Odisha BK Hariprasad, have accused the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and BJP of “poaching” its rank and file. The infighting in the Odisha Congress has escalated in the recent past, especially after the party’s rout in the elections to the local bodies two months ago.

The BJP pushed the Congress to the third spot and occupied the space of the principal opposition party.

Of the total 846 zilla parishad seats for which polls were held from February 13, BJD won 473 seats while the BJP bagged 297 and Congress managed just 60.

Besides workers and leaders, all 16 Congress legislators have raised a banner of revolt against state chief Prasad Harichandan. These legislators had met the leadership on several occasions last year and even threatened to resign from the assembly if their demand was not met.

To address their grievances, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met a party delegation.

The leaders urged the Congress V-P to remove Harichandan from his position as “he had failed to resurrect the party and re-energise” the cadre.

For his part, the Congress V-P stressed on the need to have wider consultations on the issue.

He has called a meeting of all state legislators and other leaders in Delhi on May 8 to discuss the organisational restructuring.