Bhubaneswar: The call for a change in the State leadership of the Congress has intensified after the crushing defeat in the recently concluded Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
Senior leaders like Panchanan Kanungo, and Jaydev Jena went in favour of a change of top leadership on moral ground after the party remained in the distant third in the Assembly elections with just 14 seats.
Senior Congress leader and former minister Pachanan Kanungo said, “The PCC president had earlier exuded confidence number of MLAs in the State assembly would increase from 9 to 90. However, the performance of Congress under his leadership was poor in the State. There was a wave of change everywhere in the country and in the State as well. BJP reaped the benefit of an anti-government wave, but Congress failed.”
Everyone knows the reason of Congress’ poor show in the recent elections. The PCC president himself also suffered a crushing defeat. Therefore, he should resign from the post of PCC president on moral grounds, he demanded.
Kanungo said that he had written to the PPC chief to review such an election disaster of Congress. He is yet to get a response of his letter, he added.
Similarly, former PCC president and senior Congress leader Jaydev Jena also echoed a similar voice. He said Sarat Pattnayak should resign from the post of PCC president on moral grounds, claiming responsibility of the party’s dismal performance in the elections.
“In the past, I was given the charge of the party in the 2014 general elections. I had also stepped down on the day of the election results while the party failed to perform well.
On the other hand, PCC president Sarat Pattnayak argued that party performance is better than the earlier. He pointed out that BJD, which was then ruling failed to capture a single Lok Sabha seat while Congress has retained its Koraput seat. Similarly, the number of MLAs has also increased. Moreover, the vote percentage of the party has also gone up in many regions in the State, Pattnayak maintained.
