Pressure appears to be mounting on Niranjan Patnaik, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC), to relinquish his position following a series of poll debacles since 2019. The Congress drew a blank in 18 out of 30 districts in the recently concluded elections to three-tier Panchayati Raj institutions in the State.
This is in continuation of the poor performances visible ever since the Congress slid from its position as the principal Opposition party down to the third place in the State Assembly in 2019. The party performed disastrously in the three byelections in Balasore, Jagatsinghpur and Pipili.
In the Pipili bypoll, the Congress candidate, Biswokeshan Harichandan Mohapatra, had managed to get only 4,261 (or 4.39% of) votes secured by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate.
The Congress had fielded Navajyoti Patnaik, Mr. Niranjan Pantaik’s son, from the Balasore Lok Sabha seat in 2019. However, in the 2020 Balasore bypoll, the Congress candidate, Mamata Kundu, dropped to the third place with 4,983 votes.
The final straw for the grand old party was the previous Zilla Parishad election. In it, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 42 seats while the Congress secured 37 seats. Though there wasn’t a great deal of difference between the two parties as far as the number of seats was concerned, the saffron party cornered 30.07% of votes compared to the 13.57% of votes got by the Congress. In 18 out of 30 districts, Congress candidates could not open their accounts.
Murmurs within party now grow louder. Though the OPCC president has time and again made statements in public that he did not want to continue as the State party chief, it’s the party’s Central leadership that has to take a call.
“The Central leadership does not pay any attention to the party’s affairs in Odisha. How many despicable performances would be required to shake their conscience? In the past two decades, we have come down from being the principal Opposition party to a non-player in State politics,” a senior State Congress leader said.
The Odisha Congress has been witnessing an exodus of senior party leaders for quite some time. Congress working president Pradeep Majhi left the party in 2021. All of the OPCC’s wings are almost defunct. The party was not even able to have its voice heard in the Mamata Meher murder case, in which the ruling BJD appeared to be temporarily on a back foot.
While age is not on Mr. Niranjan Patnaik’s side as most of his contemporaries are not active in Congress politics, dissidents have been demanding that the Congress’ central leadership should opt for a younger leader for the position of the OPCC president in order to build the party afresh.
Those who are opposed to Mr. Niranjan Patnaik’s continuation the Odisha Congress chief appear hopeful now that five State Congress heads have been shown door following the party’s dismal performance in their respective States.
