The Rourkela District Congress unit here is beset with troubles as the local unit has no head since March 2014. last DCC chief BM Pattanaik joined the BJD just before the April general elections expressing his resentment over distribution of party ticket for the much hyped Rourkela Assembly seat. Since then DCC vice-president Ganesh Pradhan has been working as acting president.
Not only Pattanaik but also many frontline leaders of the party and other frontal organisations like Mahila Congress, Youth Congress and Students’ Congress left the party and joined either the BJD or BJP. That is why the party candidates in Rourkela and Raghunathpali Assembly segments not only lost but also forfeited their security deposits and the Sundargarh MP candidate was tucked to the third position as he got very low number of votes in these two seats.
It may be noted here that while Niranjan Patnaik was the PCC chief, Nihar Ray was the Rourkela DCC chief. While Ray was leading the party here he was regularly holding party activities in the district and the Congress party used to be in the limelight. But when Jayadev Jena became the PCC chief, Ray was replaced by Pattanaik. Perhaps from that day the rot set in.
After Prasad Harichandan became the PCC chief, it was expected that he will appoint Rourkela DCC chief soon as the forthcoming Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) election is round the corner. But so far Prasad having not been able to appoint a substitute of Pattanaik, the party is now in a chaotic state with many leaders and workers getting more and more frustrated with regard to their career.
As the BJD and the BJP are gearing up for the forthcoming RMC election, many Congress leaders are in touch with the two parties for their rehabilitation, revealed a Congress leader on condition of anonymity. If the vote percentage of the Congress party in the past elections is taken into consideration then it could be well assessed how the party is shrinking here.
After getting a thumping victory in 1980 Assembly elections, it lost narrowly in 1985 elections and again lost in a wide margin in 1990 polls. But it could manage to win the seat in 1995 by a thin margin. However, since 2000, it has never succeeded. Even in 2014 elections, it lost the security here. Even though the party managed to form the council in the Rourkela civic body once between 2003 and 2008, it did not have a clear mandate.
But sources said Prasad had held a meeting with certain local leaders at Bhubaneswar but no consensus was evolved on a DCC chief. Then Prasad gave a proposal to make a five-leader committee to manage the forthcoming RMC election but the local leaders turned it down. It indicates how the local leaders are divided in various groups. At last Prasad had to form a 15-member committee which will manage the RMC election. Given the schism in the party, a consensus among the committee leaders on candidate selection for RMC election would be a far cry as many of them have their personal reservation. Besides, the patch work of the PCC chief is likely to widen the internal rift in the party. Political observers do not hope for a rosy picture for Congress in the coming RMC election.