Shocked by the BJP’s tidal upsurge in western Odisha, where the Congress almost drew a blank in the recent panchayat elections, the buzz is Rahul Gandhi may be going to appoint the next OPCC president from this region to recover the lost ground.
And if the sources are to be believed, former Minister in the UPA Government Bhakta Charan Das could well be given the mantle of next OPCC chief.
The party was humbled to number three in western Odisha, earlier a bastion of the Congress for decades, in the rural polls. In comparison, the Congress still was a formidable challenge to the ruling BJD in a majority of coastal districts as the party finished close second in the panchayat polls. Even, in vote share also, the party saw a big plummet in western Odisha vis-a-vis coastal Odisha. Moreover, the anti-incumbency trend against the BJD is quite high in western Odisha. Therefore, the Congress vice-president has given much thought to western Odisha to revive the party there, explained a senior Congress leader, who was privy to the deliberations on Odisha Congress revamp.
While party MlAs, some overtly and some quite diplomatically, impressed upon Rahul Gandhi to change incumbent PCC chief Prasad Harichandan blaming him for the party’s debacle, many senior leaders like Srikant Jena, Jayadev Jena and Sarat Pattanayak did not provide the Gandhi any negative assessment about Harichandan. Sources rather indicated how these senior leaders have appraised Gandhi on how the party was faction-ridden prior to the rural polls, what are the negative factors and how they are to be remedied. Moreover, Odisha in-charge BK Hariprasad was also standing in good stead with Prasad Harichandan, the sources confided.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt from the sources that while speaking to Gandhi when most MlAs vouched for bringing back Niranjan Patnaik, the crux is Patnaik was hesitant to don the PCC chief mantle. The sources further added that Gandhi is, however, currently scouting for a leader who has the knack of a strong organiser and, at the same time, is a face of popular mass movements in the State.
“In this criterion, profiles of two leaders, Pradeep Majhi and Bhakta Das, have emerged,” the source added. While Bhakta led the 1983 farmers’ movement along with Kishan Patnaik, whom Nehru had called Mini lohia, to waive farm loans; Pradeep was a face of movement against malnutrition deaths in Nabarangpur and PDS corruption in adjoining districts.
However, the sources added that unanimity among Congress leaders on one among these two leaders Bhakta and Pradeep is still elusive, which could throw up some dark horse at the last moment.
But Rahul Gandhi is worried at the collapse of coordination between the OPCC team and the Congress legislature Party in the State, and he is evaluating on placing a leader at the helm to make goings smooth for the 2019 elections, the sources said.