BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) will hold its brain-storming meeting after the Monsoon Session of the Assembly to take corrective measures for strengthening the party which fared miserably in the last general elections.
General secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC) BK Hariprasad, secretary Subhonkar Sarkar and party observers will reach here in the first week of August to attend the meeting. Besides attending the State executive meeting, the AICC functionaries will meet the party’s defeated candidates in the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats. In spite of the demand for convening a meeting to review the party’s performance in the State, it has been delayed for one reason or the other. Several senior State leaders have demanded immediate overhaul of the organisation after the poll debacle. However, president of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Jaydev Jena continues in the post. Soon after the party’s debacle in Odisha, Jena had owned moral responsibility and written to party president Sonia Gandhi. However, no decision has been taken in this regard giving rise to strong resentment among party leaders.
Jena met the party president in New Delhi on Friday and apprised her about the political situation in the State. The OPCC president said he discussed about the steps to be taken to revitalise the organisation in Odisha. He said the AICC functionaries will take the opinion of defeated party candidates in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls to ascertain the reasons for the party’s poor show in the polls. Jena said he will not be present during their meetings with the party candidates.
Congress tally in the Assembly polls was reduced to 16 from 29 seats in 2009 elections while it drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls.