Bhubaneswar, Aug. 12: Factional war in the state Congress has intensified with the party’s disciplinary committee deciding to issue a show cause notice to former MP and media baron-cum-politician Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.

Sources said the party had decided to crack its whip on Patnaik, who happens to be the brother of former Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, after his Sankalpa Yatra became a source of embarrassment for the leadership.

During the course of the yatra, launched with the ostensible purpose of strengthening the Congress, the former MP raised many thorny issues, which the leadership found hard to swallow. Things came to a head after he had sought to rake up the issue of ticket distribution in the 2009 elections at one of his meetings.

Disciplinary committee head and former minister Harihar Karan said the former MP’s actions had sent a wrong message to the people projecting the Congress as a divided house in the state. “Whoever howsoever big won’t be spared if found violating discipline,” averred Karan.

Sources said the committee had decided to act against Patnaik on three counts — attempt to run a parallel organisation, poking fun at the Nehru-Gandhi family and sending out a message that the Congress in Odisha was not united.

Patnaik, who has seven days to reply to the notice, told a local TV channel over phone that he was neither running a parallel organisation nor did he ever attempt to ridicule the Gandhis. He felt it was a case of misunderstanding.

A state Congress leader said action against Patnaik was expected as he had been making provocative statements ever since his brother was removed as the committee president in May and replaced with Dalit leader Jaydev Jena. The Sankalpa Yatra itself is being seen as a forum for dissidents, who are yet to reconcile to the leadership change in the party.

Significantly, Patnaik’s elder brother, Niranjan, was conspicuous by his absence at the party’s rally in Keonjhar yesterday though it happens to be his home district.

“Both him and Jaydev Jena hail from the district. Niranjan’s presence would have boosted the morale of party workers, but he chose to stay away,” said a leader.