Bhubaneswar: Factionalism continues to dog the Odisha unit of Congress, which is struggling to stay relevant following repeated electoral debacles. On Monday, discontent against Sarat Patnaik, who took over as OPCC president last year, came to the fore again when former OPCC working president Chiranjib Biswal took a jibe at the former’s ‘9 to 90′ target for the 2024 Assembly elections.
Biswal slammed the state party president for not being democratic in his actions. “No one is being consulted on ways to take the party forward. This has been the case with whosoever picked as the president. This is the biggest disease afflicting the party,” he said.
Biswal, a former MLA and elder son of one-time Congress strongman Basant Biswal, also questioned the ongoing campaigning for the Jharsuguda bypoll on May 10. “Nobody in the party knows how campaigning is going on in Jharsuguda. The Congress has lost the zing to contest polls as it continues to struggle with the leadership issue. Let alone the ‘9 to 90 MLAs’ target, I doubt if the party will be able to field candidates in all assembly constituencies in the state,” he said.
Biswal further said the party has only 9 MLAs but 20 CM aspirants. “Those nourishing a constituency are being denied tickets. Youths who are actively working are also not getting adequate opportunities,” he added.
Senior Congress leaders have long been pushing for working in the field instead of just whiling away time at Congress Bhawan here and strengthen the party at the grassroots.
Sarat Patnaik, however, refused to comment on Biswal’s statements. ” At present, our focus is on Jharsuguda by-election. It is an internal matter of Congress and we will look into it,” he added.
The grand old party has witnessed a sharp fall in its vote share and number of seats in successive elections since 2004, highlighting its decline. The party’s vote share plummeted from 33.7 per cent in 2000 when it lost power to BJD to 16 per cent in 2019. The performance of the party in urban and rural elections has been dismal. Its candidates lost deposits in five bypolls since 2019.
