Twenty-three district Congress Committee (DCC) presidents on Thursday unanimously backed Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) Prasad Harichandan before AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi and asserted that the party would perform well in the ensuing panchayat elections in the State under his leadership.
This came as a major jolt to the united party MlAs apparently led by leader of Opposition (loP) Narasingha Mishra and former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik, who have been pitching for ouster of Harichandan citing his failure in carrying senior party leaders, including the 16 party MlAs, with him.
After two unsuccessful appointments, the 23 DCC chiefs along with party State in-charge BK Hariprasad and his deputy Subhankar Sarkar met Gandhi on Thursday afternoon and held talks with him for around two hours.
The leaders even submitted a profile of Harichandan detailing his activities in the last two years to strengthen the organistaion at the grassroots level.
“We have full faith on Prasad Harichandan’s leadership. There is no necessity to ouster him from PCC chief post. Rahul Gandhi asked us to work in coordination with the PCC leadership for the ensuing panchayat elections,” said Cuttack DCC chief Mohammed Moquim after the meeting.
BK Hariprasad, who was present during the meeting with Gandhi, said the DCC presidents were asked to work hard for better performance of the party in the rural polls.
On being asked about the absence of 10 other DCC presidents, Hariprasad said five of them had met the high command earlier and two others expressed their inability to come due to some reasons.
Sources said the high command has authorised Harichandan to take action against troublemakers without any hesitation.
Earlier, Hariprasad had said there was “no vacancy” in the PCC in an apparent reference to the dissident MlAs.
Now, all eyes are on the future course of action of the MlAs.