Bhubaneswar: Senior Congress leader Prasad Harichandan will remain as the President of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) till 2019.
A decision to this effect has been taken by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) supremo Rahul Gandhi.
Announcing this at a press meet here on Saturday, chairperson of PCC Disciplinary Committee, Sandhya Mohapatra said the AICC has not accepted the resignation of Harichandan.
“The AICC did not accept the resignation of Harichandan as the party supremo Rahul Gandhi wanted him to continue as the PCC president. The Congress supremo felt that as the general election is most likely to be held in the next 8-9 months, it will not be possible for a new PCC president to deal with the election matter within the short period. Taking this into consideration, he has decided to retain Harichandan as the PCC president till the general elections next year,” Mohapatra said.
It may be recalled that Harichandan had resigned from his post on February 28 owning moral responsibility for his party’s miserable show in the Bijepur byelection.
While BJD candidate Rita Sahu bagged 102871 votes and BJP candidate Ashok Panigrahi bagged 60938 votes, the Congress finished a distant third with party candidate Pranaya Sahu getting a paltry 10,274 votes in the byelection.
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.
