OB Exclusive: Prasad Harichandan Quits As OPCC President!

Bhubaneswar: Following Congress’ poor show in the Bijepur byelection, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Prasad Harichandan on Wednesday resigned from his post owning moral responsibility, party sources told OdishaBytes.

Sources close to Harichandan said he put in his papers soon after the Bijepur results were announced. The Congress finished a distant third, with party nominee Pranaya Sahu getting 10,274 votes as against BJD’s Rita Sahu bagging 10,2,871 votes and BJP’s Ashok Panigrahi pocketing 60,938 votes.

Party sources said Harichandan, a former minister and three-time MLA, had following the 2017 panchayat elections owned moral responsibility for the drubbing.

Harichandan, who took over as OPCC chief in December 2014, has for the last several months been facing opposition from within the party with some senior leaders openly ventilating their ire against him. A section within the party has been lobbying against him citing the party’s dismal performance in 2017 zilla parishad polls, where the grand old party finished third behind the BJD and the BJP.

The Bijepur bypoll, necessitated by the death of MLA Subala Sahu (Cong) in August 2017, was held at a time when Harichandan was in the midst of personal tragedy following the death of his mother. Party insiders feel the bypoll debacle was due to resource constraints and factional feud. “Moreover, the high command had given specific responsibility to different senior party leaders. But all of them failed to garner support. On the whole, it was a collective failure of the party,” a senior Congress leader noted.