Bhubaneswar, Aug. 23: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) meeting today witnessed a heated exchange of words between former Union minister Srikant Jena and Opposition leader Narasingha Mishra.
Jena had questioned justification of the party's Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) MLAs prostrating before Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on May 13. The Congress and BJP MLAs had prostrated before the chief minister inside the Assembly seeking implementation of the Odisha Reservation of Vacancies Act to provide 38 per cent reservation. The incident had sparked off criticism from various quarters as it had portrayed the MLAs in a poor light.
Raising the issue today at the executive meet, Jena wanted to know why they took such a "humiliating" decision.
Mishra reportedly told the meeting that the decision was taken by the party legislators. "Nobody should poke his nose into the affairs of the legislature party," Mishra is said to have retorted.
Party insiders said that the incident reflected the differences between the organisational wing and legislature party.
That all is not well between the leaders of the two wings - Prasad Harichandan and Narasingha Mishra - had come to the fore when the OPCC had abstained from an all party meeting called by Mishra on August 3 on the Mahanadi river issue.
Later, the difference over the Mahanadi issue was papered out with the party calling an all Odisha bandh on August 16 and Harichandan and Mishra jointly addressing a press conference.
Significantly, the PCC extended executive, today decided to bury the differences so that it doesn't give out conflicting views and grievances to the public.
AICC general secretary in charge of Odisha B.K. Hariprasad, who attended the meeting, said the party was preparing a roadmap to fight the panchayat polls in 2017. "The members today discussed about the failures and misdeeds of the NDA government at the Centre and BJD government in the state. We will take all these issues to the people," he said.
Party sources said Congress would take the Mahanadi issue to the public during panchayat polls and hoped to corner both the BJP and BJD on the issue.
