New Congress Team for Orissa is a confusing incongruity: Orissa waiting for end of BJD misrule is betrayed again

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

In Oriya, a saw says, “Bahu Lokare Musa Mareni” which means many people together cannot kill a mouse. Reason is: many people become confused in their collective action. The new team of Congress “appointed” for Orissa gives this impression and there is no reason to accept that it will not be more contributive to the continuing confusion in the Pradesh Congress.

We have repeatedly shown in these pages that Congress high command being a lobby body of industrialists including foreigners has been keeping the Orissa State Unit of Congress organizationally weak to help the “supremo” of BJD Naveen Patnaik, known for his eagerness to serve the avaricious big industries, even foreign based industries, continue in power sans any opposition. By “appointing” the new leadership of OPCC, the Congress high command betrayed the people of Orissa again, who are eagerly waiting for end of the present misrule. We apprehend this; because, the new team of PCC President Prasad Harichandan “appointed” by the Congress high command (CHC) is seemingly a conglomerate of confusing incongruity.

Besides ten Vice-Presidents, the CHC has “appointed” 55 Secretaries. One cannot imagine what these 55 Secretaries would do. It should have taken the opportunity of “appointing” new Secretaries to cover all the administrative departments of Orissa with one capable Secretary in charge of one department, so that people of Orissa could have got the picture of misrule in each of the administrative departments from the main Opposition Party. This is not going to happen.

If fifty five secretaries were needed for the Congress, the party should have a single General Secretary to whom these massive numbers of secretaries should have been asked to report. The party could have been led thus in a responsible manner. But, instead of one, 25 numbers of General Secretaries have been “appointed”. As if this is not enough, it has “appointed” 37 numbers of organizing secretaries over and above the 25 general secretaries and 55 secretaries.

But this is not the end. It has “appointed” five political secretaries, as if all the above 117 secretaries are non-political! Confusion! Thy name is Congress!

The CHC has “appointed” a mega committee in the guise of coordination with the PCC president as its convener. When the general secretary of AICC in charge of Orissa is its ex officio chairman, the AICC secretary in charge of Orissa is an ex officio member in this committee. The rest 20 members in this 23 strong committee are senior Stale level leaders with witnessed history of rivalry with each other. They are collectively a total anathema to the term ‘coordination’. If a coordination committee was needed, the two AICC secretaries in charge of Orissa should have been given the charge. But what gain the Congress shall bag by “appointing” such a pack of habitual practitioners of internecine rivalry as coordinators of the Pradesh Congress is a conundrum, we suspect, the Congress is unable to understand.

Even the illiterate farmers of Orissa know that over-saturation of paddy plants are counterproductive. Hence they destroy excessive paddy plants from their respective fields by way of puddling, as a practice. In over-saturating the Pradesh Congress with such massive numbers of leaders, the Congress High Command has clearly shown that it is lacking in this minimum wisdom.

If not, how shall such subjugation of the State Unit of Congress to over-saturation of “appointed” leaders be read?

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