Senior leaders of Congress came to Sambalpur to find reasons behind miserable defeat of the party. But what they witnessed became a matter of concern for them.
George Tirkey and PCC general secretary Gyana Beura came to Sambalpur as a ‘fact-finding team’ to know the reasons behind the miserable defeat of the party in both Assembly and Parliament segments. It is a fact that Congress has not been able to get the traditional votes resulting in sharp dip in the vote percentage.
But during the meeting with the fact finding team, what happened practically astonished the leaders. Not only quarrels and blames and counter blames, one group attacked the other.
The supporters of both the groups came out of the party office in the Government bus stand to attack each other in the open and particularly to one Ruben Chhatria of Burla known as a staunch supporter of Dr Aswini Pujahari, the MLA candidate of Sambalpur Assembly constituency.
Party workers blamed Pujahari for not keeping any relation with them during the entire election process. The result being the vote of Congress was reduced to only 16 per cent from 26 per cent of the last Assembly election.
They further blamed that a single party worker doesn’t know how the candidate spent the funds supplied to him from PCC/AICC.
President of Burla town Congress Sadasiv Pradhan directly blamed Pujahari for the miserable defeat to which his supporter Ruben Chhatria protested and thereafter started the mayhem.
Former MLA cum district Congress president Aswini Guru tried to pacify the members. However, Dr Pujahari left the party office due to the tension. While only two MLA candidates of Rengali and Sambalpur were present before the fact finding team, the two others of Kuchinda and Rairakhol were not there. At the same time, the MP candidate Sarat Patnaik was also absent.
However, most of the leaders and workers of the party were seen blaming the party State leadership for the miserable defeat. They cited that it was a wrong decision to field Sarat Patnaik in the Sambalpur Parliament seat who is a resident of Balangir district.