The Rourkela DCC office, which remained closed for days together following mass exodus of its functionaries, was re-opened on Monday only to hold election preparatory meeting but ended up in a very hostile situation with two groups engaging in a scuffle in presence of many senior leaders.
The Congress is facing serious crisis in the two neighbouring, Rourkela and Raghunathpali, Assembly constituencies as a big band of party leaders, including Rourkela DCC president BN Pattanayak, Sundargarh lok Sabha constituency Youth Congress president Shree Kumar Nair, six secretaries, one block president and a former Rourkela Municipality Chairman, resigned and switched over to other political parties recently.
Source said the argument started when DCC secretary Shankar Agarwal argued that he should not campaign for Sundargarh lok Sabha candidate Hemananda Biswal as no developmental work was taken up in the Bondhamunda area during his current stint. He said that MP lAD of Rs3 lakh for revamping of a pond was executed by the BJD workers.
With this, Biswal’s representative Pramod Pradhan got angry and started beating Agarwal, which lead to a very unfriendly situation for others present there. While Agarwal was going to lodge a complaint against Pradhan, Rourkela MlA candidate Pravat Mohapatra intervened and could convince him not to do so.
However, Pradhan soon lodged a complaint in the Plant site police station against Pravat Mohapatra, former DCC president Nihar Ray, Agarwal and V Reena alleging that they scolded him using unparliamentary words.
Pradhan informed that that the pond revamping work was entrusted to the Rourkela Municipality, which engaged a contractor through due tender process.
The brawl among the workers will have an election impact while most of the DCC functionaries have given exits, feel political thinkers here.