BHUBANESWAR: Even as not many in the Pradesh Congress are happy with the jumbo team of office bearers announced by All India Congress Committee (AICC), the new functionaries of the party will meet here on Sunday to chalk out strategy for its revival and make it battle ready for the general elections due early next year.With several leaders privately complaining that the new team is packed with supporters of Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, AICC in-charge of Odisha Jitendra Singh, who is scheduled to attend the meeting, will have the challenge to convince the party that the team will deliver.
Sources in the party said Singh will attend a series of meetings of the party, including the core committee meeting, to decide the next course of action defining the role for new office bearers.
While some of the new office bearers claim that the new team is the most balanced one, those who did not find a place in it said the PCC chief will face the same fate of his predecessors due to disproportionate representations from different factions in the party.“Patnaik, who criticised his predecessor Prasad Harichandan for carrying a jumbo team is now going to lead much bigger team than the previous one,” said senior leader and former minister Suresh Kumar Routary.
Commenting on the composition of the PCC committee, a newly inducted general secretary said many senior and capable leaders of the party have been ignored in the new team. Former PCC president Jaydev Jena, a known Patnaik baiter, said it is the prerogative of the PCC president to select his team. “I am not authorised to comment on the new team which has the stamp of approval of the AICC,” he added.
With many new faces inducted as general secretary, a senior leader of party who did not want to be named said he has serious doubt about their organisational capacity. As the next elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha is less than eight months and the party organisation in a moribund state, the immediate task before the party is to revive the party and re-energise the party workers, the sources added.