Bhubaneswar: The differences among top leaders of Congress party in Odisha came to fore again with some of them demanding resignation of OPCC president Sarat Pattnaik for the party’s poor performance in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Speaking to the media, the state’s senior Congress leader Panchanan Kanungo said even as the president of Odisha Pradesh Congree Committee (OPCC) had gone to the elections with the pledge to raise the party’s number of seats in the Assembly from nine to 90, it could win only in 14 Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha seat.
Considering the poor performance of the party in the elections, Pattnaik, as leader of the state Congress, should take the moral responsibility and resign from OPCC president post, Kanungo said.
While the Congress Bhavan in Bhubaneswar, the party’s headquarters has remained closed for several days, the Pattnaik has not come out with any statement regarding his decision.
“I do not know whether Pattnaik has resigned or not. Everybody knows the performance of Congress in the elections. I am very clear that as OPCC president, Pattnaik should resign from the post,” Kanungo said.
The senior Congress leader further said he had written to the state party president seeking a meeting to discuss the reasons for the party’s performance, but had not received any response so far.
Similarly, former OPCC president Jaydev Jena has also claimed that it was the moral obligation of Pattnaik to resign from his post as he was responsible for the party’s performance in the elections. “I was assigned the responsibility to win the elections by the Central leadership in 2014. After the defeat of the party in the elections, I owned the moral responsibility and announced my resignation from OPCC president post on the same day the results were declared,” he said.
