Bhubaneswar: Congress president Rahul Gandhi is believed to have summoned four senior party leaders from Odisha, fuelling speculation about a change of guard in the state.

The leaders, scheduled to meet Gandhi on Thursday, are former Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) chief Niranjan Patnaik, Naba Kishore Das, Chiranjeev Biswal and Pradeep Majhi.

Party sources indicated that Patnaik may be asked to assume the reins of the state unit in the place of incumbent OPCC president Prasad Hari-chandan. The party may appoint three working presidents allocating them specific regions. While Das will look after west Odisha, Biswal will get the charge of the coastal belt and tribal leader Majhi will take care of the south.

This will be the first meeting of Rahul with state leaders after he changed the AICC team looking after Odisha. Last week, he had replaced state affairs in-charge B.K. Hariprasad with former Union minister Jitendra Singh and appointed Rudra Raju, Anil Kumar Chaudhary and Shaikh Mastan Vali, all AICC secretaries, to assist him.

Aditya Sharma has been appointed as joint secretary of the AICC for Odisha. The AICC had also removed Subhankar Sarkar from the charge of Odisha affairs.

Majhi said: "The AICC has summoned me to Delhi. But I don't know why I have been called." On being asked whet-her the leadership was going to effect changes in the Odisha unit, Majhi said: "The issue has been discussed a number of times. The leadership will take the right decision at the right time keeping the betterment of the party in mind."

Harichandan's troubles mounted following the party's debacle in panchayat elections in February last year. Recently, senior leaders, including former working president Chandra Sekhar Sahu, left the party to join the BJD. The party has failed to check mass exodus. Most of the leaders who left the party have attributed their departure to their disillusionment with leadership. The family members of Bijepur MLA Subal Sahu, who passed away in August, also quit the party with his widow Rita contesting and winning the seat in a by-poll on BJD ticket.

Earlier, a section of state party leaders during their meeting with Gandhi had impressed upon him the need for a change of guard in the state to save the party from collapsing. Some of them had openly rooted for Patnaik as replacement for Prasad. Patnaik had been unceremoniously ousted from the post of the party's state president a year ahead of 2014 elections. These leaders have been arguing that Patnaik has the required experience to revive the party in the state.

Patnaik said: "I am in Del-hi. I have not been summoned by the AICC and I have no idea about any change of guard." On the other hand, Harichandan said that the party would soon witness a "Nabakalebara (complete revamp)".