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Congress in disarray in Orissa

Bibhuti Mishra in Bhubaneswar

The squabble in the Orissa state Congress has become worse after the candidates for 140 assembly seats in the state were announced.

Of the three ministers and a dozen MLAs who have been denied tickets, most hold the PCC president responsible for their exclusion though they don't mention it openly. Although finance minister and senior leader Bhagabat Prasad Mohanty who has not got the ticket says he will respect the high command's decision, it is well known there's little love lost between him and PCC president J B Patnaik. Mohanty, then the higher education minister, had fallen out with Patnaik when the latter was the chief minister.

In fact, Mohanty, as a prominent member of the Basant Biswal group, had spearheaded the anti-Patnaik campaign. When contacted, Mohanty told rediff.com : "I don't know if any one has anything against me. But I have no animus against anyone, not even Patnaik. We differed on policy matters. So I see no reason why I was not given a ticket."

He rejected the argument that it could have to do with his name being linked with the Kendrapara sex scandal and a number of girls committing suicide in his constituency.

Information and PR Minister Bhupinder Singh also faces Patnaik's ire. Singh had got too close to Patnaik's successor Gamang for comfort and Patnaik whose rehabilitation as PCC president barely 10 months after his ouster as the chief minister got a further boost when he was appointed the campaign committee chairman.

Singh has rushed to Delhi and is lobbying hard for a ticket. Interestingly, the innocuous Gamang , who is not defending his Laxmipur assembly seat, is also dubbed a villain with Panchayatiraj and Law Minister Raghunath Patnaik asserting that it was Gamang who saw to it that he was denied a ticket. He now threatens to contest as a non-Congress candidate from Jeypore. Besides Gamang, another former chief minister, Nandini Satpathy, has also bowed out. A couple of sitting MLAs had also expressed their unwillingness to contest this time.

These leaders are also safe because the Congress's prospects are bleak this time. Apart from these leaders, about 11 legislators who have been denied ticket are also crying foul. Which makes the situation stickier for the Congress.

The party women's wing is also unhappy that only 13 women (less than 10 per cent) have got tickets.

"The Congress had taken a position that 33 per cent seats should be reserved for women; but, in practice, it flouts its professed intentions," fumes a senior Congress woman leader who vows to take up the matter with the high command.

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