BHUBANESWAR: On a day when Congress basked in the glory of a thumping victory in Karnataka Assembly elections, the party’s state unit stared at utter humiliation with its candidate in the Jharsuguda bypoll Tarun Pandey losing his deposit. Losing deposit, unfortunately, has become a trend for the grand old party in Odisha. In eight by-elections in the state since 2019, with the exception of Brajrajnagar, the party has lost deposit in all the contests.
And as usual, the blame game and bickering has erupted in the state party unit immediately after the bypoll result was announced. The leadership of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Sarat Pattanayak has once again come into question. The opening salvo was fired by none other that the leader of the Congress legislature party (CLP) Narasingh Mishra who accused a lack of leadership and weak organisation of having led to the humiliating defeat of the party candidate,
Stating that this is not for the first time that such a thing has happened, the CLP leader said in Padampur also, the party candidate Satya Bhusan Sahu, a former government chief whip had lost his deposit.“The party had secured second position in Brajrajnagar bypoll only for the personal organisation of Kishore Chandra Patel. Besides, Congress votes had come down by half to 27,000 votes and the BJP was not very far behind,” he said.
Several Congress leaders have questioned the party’s performance in the bypoll and pointed towards en-block transfer of votes to the BJD. In fact, the Congress candidate has polled 14,327 votes less than the party got in 2019 election. Congress’ Mahendra Naik had secured 18,823 votes in the 2019 Assembly election from Jharsuguda when former health minister Naba Kishore Das quit the party with the entire organisation and joined BJD.
Transfer of votes was a major issue in the Congress after the Padampur bypoll defeat with senior leaders pointing fingers at the state leadership. OPCC president Sarat Pattanayak also admitted that lack of organisation led to the defeat of party candidate.“I have taken over as OPCC president only 11 months back and am trying to set right the organisation at different places,” he said.