Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The lady autocrat of the Congress Party, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, has yet again sabotaged the party in Orissa by “appointing” Niranjan Patnaik as its new provincial president in place of K.P.Snghdeo, who was “appointed” just before the elections in 2009.
Nobody knows, when a new person shall be “appointed” in place of Patnaik, but everybody knows that provincial presidents of Congress are always arbitrarily changed to help Chief Minister Nabeen Patnaik retain his post without challenge.
As long as Naveen is working for POSCO and Sonia is Congress supremo, there is no chance of change in this practice, many in Orissa feel.
We have earlier discussed in these pages, how election of the provincial president was stopped at the last moment, when it was clear that, majority of provincial electorate was in favor of “electing” Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, the one Congress leader most disadvantageous to the ruling Patnaik.
Mohapatra is an experienced organizer sans any blemish, who, since his student days, has kept his influence stable in the grassroots level, with Congress stalwarts all over Orissa having their faith in him. It is he, who on his alert campaigns against the ruling party, has uncompromisingly exposed ministerial corruption to the extent of forcing the CM asking for his colleague’s resignation. When other top ranking Congress leaders of Orissa have their support bases at best in their respective zones or regions, Mohapatra, next only to Ex-Chief Minister J.B.Patnaik, has his bases all over the State. He could have led the party to victory against Naveen had he been allowed to lead the party. But that was not to be.
When the entire party is a collective of confused members vying with each other in sycophancy to please Sonia, there is nothing surprising if they were denied by her the right to elect a leader of their choice to lead the party in the State. But the one now “appointed” by her to lead the State has, in his first statement to the Press, generated impressions that he is not aware of his party’s strength or weakness in the State.
He has said, it would be his first task to know as to why the Congress party has been rejected in Orissa in the last three elections.
This means, the new provincial president of Congress does not know, why his party is getting defeated!
In other words, he has no study on political scenario of the State over last twelve years.
Who will believe that he will lead his party to a victory in the next election?
Obviously, the lady autocrat of Congress has not “appointed” Patnaik to lead the party to a victory against the ruling Patnaik.