In his apparent hurry to become the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president, Jeypore MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati has been vociferous in the media almost on a daily basis. In the process, he never minds if his utterances have been damaging the party in the State.
While continuing his demand for replacing Niranjan Patnaik as the PCC chief, Bahinipati says he will not be satisfied with a post of PCC working president.
Bahinipati argues that an MLA should head the PCC. An MLA, after becoming the PCC president, would undertake tour across the State along with the other nine MLAs of the party and that would strengthen the organisation at the grassroots level, he claims.
“If an MLA is not made the PCC president, we will go to Rahul Gandhi and apprise him about our dissatisfaction,” said he.
Though Cuttack MLA Mohammed Moqim is a strong contender for the PCC president post, Bahinipati seems intent on ignoring the former’s claim and lobbies in his own favour.
Meanwhile, Niranjan Patnaik is on record saying publicly that “the sooner a new PCC chief is appointed (by the party high command), the better”.
Another senior party MLA, Santosh Singh Saluja, is insistent on a change of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leadership replacing Narasingha Mishra. Though both Mishra and Saluja are from Balangir district, they are against each other in the district politics.