The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Sunday said the party witnessed debacle in the recently held twin elections in Odisha as the ruling BJD misused Government machinery and spent huge amount of black money during the poll campaigns.
Speaking to the mediapersons after the first day of the poll postmortem exercise here, All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Subhankar Sarkar said, “I have interacted with several candidates and district-level leaders. They all said that gross misuse of the police, the district administration and pumping of black money by the BJD led to the Congress’s debacle.”
Sarkar, of course, conceded that lack of coordination among the party leaders and a weak organisation contributed to the drubbing of the party and helped the ruling BJD restore power again.
He, however, chose an escape route when asked to comment on the serious wrangling and simmering anger within the party rank and file against the party’ State leadership.
“I don’t want to talk about the internal strife at this point of time. let me analyse it first. I will interact with the party workers and leaders, and then I can reach a conclusion,” Sarkar said. Sarkar informed that he would interact with some other defeated candidates and district and block-level leaders on Monday.
Meanwhile, some senior party leaders resented that while there is an AICC general secretary for party charge in Odisha, the party leadership in Delhi deputed Sarkar to interact with senior leaders here to analyze the possible causes of the party’s debacle in the State.
“AICC general secretary Odisha in-charge BK Hariprasad should have been here. The only possible reason why he may have avoided getting involved in this important exercise is that he himself was a big part of the State party leadership that drove the party to defeat here,” a dissident leader said.