BHUBANESWAR, April 21: The infighting in the state unit of the Congress took a nasty turn today when two rival groups clashed inside the premises of the Congress Bhawan here. Some even threw stones at Deputy Chief Minister Basant Kumar Biswal's car but he managed to escape unhurt.The high drama - almost a replay of what happened in May 1993 when followers of Chief Minister J B Patnaik and Biswal clashed - took place this evening while the All India Congress Committee (AICC) observer team led by K Karunakaran was holding meetings with partymen to elicit their opinion as to who should be the next Pradesh Congress chief. Chief Minister Patnaik is the party chief now.As soon as the AICC team reached the Congress Bhavan along with J B Patnaik and other senior leaders, different groups started shouting slogans like "J B Patnaik zindabad" and "Basant Kumar Biswal zindabad".People ran helter-skelter when the fight started in the Congress Bhawan. One group chased the other up to the StationSquare here, a good hundred yards away. Both sides were armed with hockey sticks and lathis. However, everything was over in 10 minutes and Congress leaders went back to business as usual.In fact, after the scuffle, both J B Patnaik and Basant Kumar Biswal could be seen downplaying the issue, initially claiming that no Congress workers were involved in the incident. But the antagonism between the two came to the fore a little later when some youth Congress workers, alleged to be Patnaik sympathisers, threw stones at Biswal's car as he was coming out of the Congress Bhawan.Talking to mediapersons, the chief minister said that some anti-socials may have entered the Congress Bhawan as it was not guarded by the police. Biswal, who was with Patnaik, described the clash "as the handiwork of outsiders trying to tarnish the image of the Congress." Biswal also clarified that there was no rift between him and the chief minister.
