Bhubaneswar: After facing debacle in the recently concluded Assembly polls in five states, Congress started knocking out its Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chiefs, which has also set a question mark on Odisha, where Congress is seemingly powerless.
As pressure mounted on PCC chiefs of every state after getting a scathing response from one of Congress’ own ruled states–Punjab, Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked its five-state unit chiefs to resign from their posts.
Obviously swing of the pin points towards Odisha PCC chief Niranjan Patnaik but his signs refer that he has already offered to desert the post years ago.
Speaking to the media persons in this regard on Wednesday, Patnaik said that he has been offering to quit the party top post since 2019.
“I have been writing to the high command to allow me to step down since the declaration of the results of the general elections in 2019. However, the high command has not thought about it so far,” Patnaik added.
Hailing the move of the party president, Patnaik said,” Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked PCC presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, and Manipur to tender resignations in order to facilitate the reorganisation of the top posts. It is an exemplary step. However, it doesn’t imply that only PCC chiefs were at fault for the losses.”
However, Patnaik clarified that he will continue to serve the party irrespective of whether he holds the top post or not.
“The huge amount of money being spent during elections nowadays was not in practice in the past. It is a threat to democracy. The party does not have much funds to contest the polls and will accept whatever result emerges,” he further added.
