That Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Prasad Harichandan is facing a coup in his party is not a secret anymore. The scheduled meeting of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi with 22 of the 33 District Congress Committee (DCC) chiefs in Odisha on November 2 is a pointer to this.
Though there is confusion over who has arranged the meeting with some saying it is the AICC, while some others indicating at Harichandan, nevertheless the support for Harichandan in the organisation will face an acid test now.
According to sources, Gandhi will meet the DCC chiefs in two phases. It is said to facilitate a direct link of the DCC with the AICC vice president over the preparation of the party for the panchayat polls due in February next year.
The AICC, which had been downplaying the internal dissents in the Odisha unit for last many years, looks to have grown serious about the matter this time and is making an effort to ensure unity, since the infighting in the party has not only weakened it, but also has had a direct bearing on its vote base.
More than anything, the issue of the Mahanadi dispute with Chattisgarh brought the internal dispute among the leaders in the party to the fore recently. The party stood virtually split between its organizational and legislative wings over the issue with each wing not backing the other’s approach.
To outsmart BJD, the Congress successfully had tapped the river dispute between Odisha and Chattisgarh under the leadership leader of Opposition (loP) Narasingha Mishra. The senior Congress leader struck the iron when it was hot since the BJD was for a time facing flak for politicizing the issue for vested interest.
Mishra convened an all-party meeting after his repeated letters to the Chief Minister and BJD supremo for the purpose did not yield any result. The all-party meeting was a success. When the wind was blowing in favour of Congress, Harichandan’s put a spoke in the wheel by deliberately showing lukewarm interest on the issue. As if to rub salt into Mishra’s wound, Harichandan went public about no support to Mishra.
This put Mishra on the dock as the person who was giving so much stress on building a consensus among all parties to fight a battle with Chattisgarh on the Mahanadi himself lacked full support in his party. The BJD got a handle to criticize the Congress and more particularly, the loP. It said that the all-party meeting was neither a success nor Mishra was acceptable in his own party.
As the chance slipped out of Congress hand to take mileage from the sensitive issue, the division in the party became more widened. Not in a mode to give up, loP Mishra, leading a delegation of Congress MlAs, met President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi for his intervention in the river dispute. The delegation also met Congress vice-president Gandhi on October 15. Not satisfied with the meeting with Gandhi, when the loP and the MlAs sought to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi, at the instance of the latter, however, another meeting with Rahul was arranged.
On October 28, Rahul summoned up Harichandan for a meeting and subsequently, the Congress vice president wants to meet the DCC presidents. The development gives a clear sign that the AICC wants to be in direct touch with the grassroots organizations ahead of the panchayat polls as it is skeptical about Harichandan’s mettle of keeping the Odisha unit united.