BHUBANESWAR: There seems to be no end to the factional fight in state Congress with party leaders knocking at the doors of senior leader and former Chief Minister Hemananda Biswal to solicit his support in their endeavour to oust president of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik.
The pro-changers on Monday met Biswal and requested him to put pressure on All India Congress Committee (AICC) for a change of OPCC president to make the party more functional in Odisha.
Biswal, who said the party is in dire straits in Odisha, refused to open up on the issue of a change of guard in the state.
“I will give my view to the AICC,” he said. Sources in the dissident camp said they will meet other senior leaders of the party in the coming days to seek their support for the removal Patnaik from the post of OPCC president. The dissidents are also planning to meet interim president Sonia Gandhi at New Delhi around November 10 to lobby for the ouster of Patnaik.
The dissidents, at a meeting on Wednesday, had decided to project party MLA from Barabati-Cuttack Mohammed Moquim as the next OPCC president. Some of the dissidents had also met OPCC president in a bid to persuade him to step down. Patnaik had resigned after the party’s miserable performance in the 2019 Assembly elections in Odisha.
However, his resignation was not accepted by the AICC. The dissident movement picked up at a time when the party is in the midst of restructuring its organisation after the drubbing it received in the Assembly and Lok Sabha election of 2019.
It now remains to be seen whether the dissidents will be able to influence the party high command to appoint a new OPCC president before the urban local body elections early next year.