Bhubaneswar: Amid calls for a change of guard in the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC), several party MLAs have now raised a demand for a new Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in the state.
Several Congress MLAs from Odisha are planning to visit New Delhi in the next few days to seek a new CLP leader in the state. The MLAs will meet Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders in Delhi over the issue.
Most party MLAs in Odisha are not happy with current CLP leader Narasingha Mishra and want him to be replaced. Mishra is heading the CLP for the last eight years and the time has come for a change to give the party a new direction, a Congress MLA told TNIE.
Mishra was the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly from 2014 to 2019. Despite the party’s debacle in the 2019 elections, which brought down Congress MLAs’ strength in the state to nine, Mishra continues to head the CLP amid simmering discontentment against his leadership.
With speculation rife that OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik will be replaced by the party high command in the coming days, state Congress MLAs and other party leaders said it was time for a complete overhaul of the party, including appointing a new CLP leader.
Patnaik resigned from the post in 2019 following the party’s debacle in the general elections. “AICC has not accepted my resignation letter yet. Have no idea when the high command will take a final call in this regard,” he said.
With the Odisha Congress in a chaos, AICC’s Odisha in-charge A Chellakumar will arrive here on April 25 to take stock of the situation.
