Cuttack: Amid Congress’ struggle to survive in Odisha having been relegated to the third position since the 2019 Assembly elections, Barabati-Cuttack MLA Mohammed Moquim on Thursday blamed the situation on leadership crisis in the party after Janaki Ballabh Patnaik, Basant Biswal and Hemananda Biswal.
“The party has failed to project any popular face after these leaders. The current leadership should wake up to this crisis,” he told mediapersons.
Moquim asserted that he was very much in Congress and stressed a collective effort to strengthen the party in the state. “Senior leadership of the party should reach out to the electorate when there is still time. The effort to bring it back on the right track, however, is yet to begin and the leadership should wake up to the situation and comprehend the issues before it is too late,” he said.
The legislator said that there had limited time to fix things and move ahead through a collective and concerted effort. “Congress has only nine MLAs in the 147-member Odisha Assembly. The party has also failed to make any impact in the bypolls. Therefore, there is a need to accept this stark reality and work towards building the party,” he said.
He further said that a blueprint for party’s revival has to be prepared and urged leaders and workers to move to the field instead of sitting in the party headquarters in Bhubaneswar.
Replying to OPPC president Sarat Pattanayak’s nine to 90 target for 2024 Assembly elections, Moquim said that some thoughts must have gone into this calculation but there is no denying the fact that the party has to work really hard to achieve this number. “It is not an impossible or a difficult task, but we have to strengthen the party at the organisational level and reach out to the people,” he asserted.
Responding to Moquim, senior leader and former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik said that considering the present situation of the party in the entire country, it is unlikely that Congress would form government in 2024.
