Rahul Gandhi’s Odisha Visit Postponed

Bhubaneswar: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will visit Odisha on March 2 instead of February 26 as scheduled earlier.

Briefing mediapersons at Congress Bhawan, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) present Niranjan Patnaik said the possibility of the party supremo visiting Odisha on February 26 appears remote. “But he has agreed to visit the state on March 2,” he said.

This would be Rahul’s third visit to Odisha this year. The Congress supremo was in Bhubaneswar on January 25 and then traveled to western Odisha on February 6, where he had addressed public meetings at Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district and Rourkela in Sundargarh district.

He was scheduled to visit the state on February 26 and address two public meetings at Jeypore in Koraput district in the south and Bargarh district in the west.

Replying to a question on the possibility of dissidence in the party due to the rise in the number of aspirants for the ensuing Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, the OPCC chief said the people of Odisha will teach the rebels a lesson if they work against the official candidates.

Niranjan informed that the Central Screening Committee (CEC) of the AICC had already selected candidates for 11 of 21 Lok Sabha constituencies and the Assembly constituencies coming under them while the process for the remaining constituencies will be completed by the end of February. “After the selection process is over, the CEC will send the list of the candidates to the AICC, which will finalise the name of the candidates after the approval of the party supremo,” he added.