Odisha Congress teeters on edge after losing deposits in 5 bypolls since 2019

In five of the seven by-elections held in the state since 2019, Congress candidates have not only been relegated to the third position, they have also lost their deposits. The party also had a poor run in the urban local body and panchayat polls in February this year.

Even as a section of its leaders called for “serious introspection” and emphasised the need to take “coercive action” to revive the party, its road ahead is fraught with challenges in the run-up to the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections due in April-May 2024.

Hours after its crushing defeat in the recently-concluded Padampur bypoll, in which the Congress candidate Satya Bhusan Sahu got only 1.73 per cent of the votes (compared to the 16.25 per cent he had secured in 2019), the Congress’s Cuttack-Barabati MLA Mohammed Moquim warned that the party will be wiped out from Odisha if the trend continues.

Factionalism, weakening organisation, resource crunch, lack of credible leadership, senior leaders’ defection and lack of activities on the ground have dealt a severe blow to the Odisha Congress, according to political observers.

Senior Congress leader and former minister Ganeswar Behera said the infighting and open statements in the media against each other, keep sending the wrong message to the masses about the credibility of the Congress leaders, and have cost the party dear.

“The only way for us to regain the lost confidence among electors and to revive the party is by standing united and speaking in one voice,” Behera told The Indian Express.

The Election Commission of India’s data shows there has been a sharp fall in the Congress’s vote share in the state. While it was 38 per cent till even 2004, it dipped to 29.11 per cent in 2009 and 25.74 per cent in 2014. By the time the party slipped to third position in 2019, it had managed to secure only 17.02 per cent votes.

From its 38 seats in the 147-member state Assembly in 2004, it has been reduced to single digit, with only nine members in the existing Assembly. The party had bagged 27 and 16 seats in the 2009 and 2014 polls, respectively.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party also won just one seat (Koraput) in Odisha while it had failed to open its account in the 2014 polls, even though it had won six Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2009.

Berhampur University’s retired political science professor Jayant Mohapatra said the Congress has failed to create a credible pan-Odisha opposition face since Janaki Ballav Patnaik, a three-time former chief minister.

“Since the party had never bothered to create second-rank leaders at the district and state levels, there was an identity crisis. Hence, there was no stability in appointment of presidents for Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC). As many as 10 leaders were appointed as OPCC president; none continued for more than three years. Sometimes, the central leadership even changed state presidents just when the party was about to embark upon planned organisational activities,” said Mohapatra.

It has also been seen in successive polls that the Congress has failed to hold on to its strongholds in southern and western pockets due to the leadership crisis.

Though the Congress had a chance to revive its organisation during 2004-2014, when the UPA was in power at the Centre, no decisive steps were taken, said Mohapatra.

Senior Congress leaders’ defection to the ruling BJD, like that of the then Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh, now a BJD MLA, ahead of the 2014 general elections, Naba Kishore Das, currently the state health minister, ahead of the 2019 elections, and tribal face and ex-MP Pradeep Majhi in November 2021 ahead of local body polls, among others, also damaged the Congress’s prospects in the state.

Besides, the party has not launched a people-connect exercise in a long time, to reach out to voters, especially the youth, with new ideas and messages.

Party veteran Sarat Pattnayak, who has been in May roped in as the OPCC president for second time, said he has prepared a detailed plan to reach out to every household in the state, as part of the party’s preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

“We will review our performance in the recent bypolls. We have prepared a series of programmes that will be carried out over the next few months. Soon, we are also going to restructure the units at the block, district and state levels. Since people are frustrated with the BJD and the BJP, we are confident they will repose their faith in the Congress,” said Pattnayak, who had earlier held the position of the OPCC chief between 2001 and 2004.