Pressure mounts on Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik to quit

Congress drew a blank in 18 out of 30 districts in elections to Panchayati Raj institutions

Pressure appears to be mounting on Niranjan Patnaik, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC), to relinquish his position following a series of poll debacles since 2019. The Congress drew a blank in 18 out of 30 districts in the recently concluded elections to three-tier Panchayati Raj institutions in the State.

This is in continuation of the poor performances visible ever since the Congress slid from its position as the principal Opposition party down to the third place in the State Assembly in 2019. The party performed disastrously in the three byelections in Balasore, Jagatsinghpur and Pipili.

In the Pipili bypoll, the Congress candidate, Biswokeshan Harichandan Mohapatra, had managed to get only 4,261 (or 4.39% of) votes secured by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate.

The Congress had fielded Navajyoti Patnaik, Mr. Niranjan Pantaik’s son, from the Balasore Lok Sabha seat in 2019. However, in the 2020 Balasore bypoll, the Congress candidate, Mamata Kundu, dropped to the third place with 4,983 votes.  

The final straw for the grand old party was the previous Zilla Parishad election. In it, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 42 seats while the Congress secured 37 seats. Though there wasn’t a great deal of difference between the two parties as far as the number of seats was concerned, the saffron party cornered 30.07% of votes compared to the 13.57% of votes got by the Congress. In 18 out of 30 districts, Congress candidates could not open their accounts.

Murmurs within party now grow louder. Though the OPCC president has time and again made statements in public that he did not want to continue as the State party chief, it’s the party’s Central leadership that has to take a call.

“The Central leadership does not pay any attention to the party’s affairs in Odisha. How many despicable performances would be required to shake their conscience? In the past two decades, we have come down from being the principal Opposition party to a non-player in State politics,” a senior State Congress leader said.