15 ‘Dissident’ Odisha Cong Leaders Denied AICC Membership

Bhubaneswar: Politics in the Odisha Congress has taken an interesting turn as the name of 15 senior party leaders has not been found among the new list of All India Congress Committee (AICC) members.

The senior leaders whose name are missing from the AICC list are Tara Prasad Bahinipati, Chandrasekhar Majhi, Chiranjibi Biswal, Prafulla Majhi, Jogesh Singh, Ansuman Mohanty, Prakash Behera, Debendra Sharma, Kailash Kulesika, K Surya Rao, Jacob Pradhan, Ananta Sethi, Kailash Acharya, Chandrasekhar Sahu and Ganeswar Behera.

On the other hand, Sidharth Mohanty, Bijay Dwivedy, Sarada Pradhan, Diptirekha Mishra, Janaki Mallick, Arati Deo, Sougat Mohanty, Lalatendu Mohapatra, Debasis Bhuyan are the new members of AICC from Odisha Congress.

Sources in the party said that the Congress supremo Rahul Gandhi has excluded the name of Tara Prasad Bahinipati, Prafulla Majhi and Jogesh Singh from the AICC member list for openly opposing Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Prasad Harichandan.

Meanwhile, the three-day AICC plenary session began in Delhi on Friday. The AICC plenary, whose main agenda is ratification of Rahul Gandhi’s election as Congress president, will pass four resolutions. The political resolution, which is expected to be passed on March 17, will carry indications on the party’s plan of action for the Lok Sabha Elections scheduled in 2019. The resolution will give a broad outline of what the party’s strategy will be with regard to getting an alliance in place in the run-up to the next general elections.

In this context, the role of the Odisha Congress leaders participating in the plenary session is eagerly awaited.

Resentment has been brewing among the party leaders against the PCC president Prasad Harichandan under whose leadership the Congress had performed miserably in the recent Bijepur byelection while some leaders have opened told the media that they would not contest the forthcoming elections under his leadership.

Under such circumstances, exclusion of senior state leaders from the AICC member list is most likely add fuel to the intra-party feud, party sources said.