BHUBANESWAR: Two days after his suspension from the Congress on charges of anti-party activities, senior leader Chiranjib Biswal lashed out at a ‘coterie within the state unit’ for trying to create divisions and weaken the organisational base of the party.
Biswal, a former OPCC working president and two-time MLA, alleged that a deep-rooted conspiracy is at work to weaken and break the party in Koraput, Jagatsinghpur and Cuttack, where it still enjoys a good base.
Blaming the state leadership for not initiating any move to resolve issues, Biswal said in Rajasthan there were differences between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior leader Sachin Pilot. “Was Pilot thrown out, he was persuaded,” he said.
Biswal said that he will announce his future course of action after consulting his supporters. Asked about speculations over his joining the BJD, he said that so many things are in circulation about him. “But I am a true Congressman and have never betrayed the party. My grandfather and father Basant Kumar Biswal worked to strengthen the party in the state,” he said.
Biswal, however, made it clear that he will contest the 2024 election. “I cannot tell you from which platform or political party, but I will contest,” he said and added that all Congressmen of Jagatsinghpur were with him and will remain with him.
Stating that after the 2019 elections, Congress has seen a decline in vote percentage in subsequent bypolls, Biswal said the party polled only 150-200 votes in booths in some panchayats. “If speaking truth is a sin then I have committed the sin. Someone has to bell the cat. We cannot let the party decline further,” he said.
Biswal alleged that a conspiracy is being hatched in the party unit by some leaders, who have never won elections and also lost deposits in the last 25 years. “Congress has been out of power in Odisha for more than two decades. I have been in politics for 23 years and won the Assembly election from Tirtol by a huge margin and again in 2014 from Jagatsinghpur seat despite the BJD wave,” he said.