Schoolchildren pay tribute to Indira Gandhi on her 27th death anniversary in Bhubaneswar on Monday. (PTI)

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 31: The Congress today observed Indira Gandhi’s death anniversary at the Umerkote Assembly constituency in a grand way ahead of the bypoll there.

“Indira Gandhi had laid down her life for the unity and integrity of the country. She had addressed a meeting at Umerkote a day before her death,” AICC leader in charge of Orissa Jagdish Tytler told The Telegraph.

“The tribals here have been commemorating the occasion for the last 27 years,” he said, exuding confidence that Congress would return to power in Orissa in the next state elections.

Umerkote Assembly constituency is set to have a bypoll soon because unidentified assailants killed the sitting BJD MLA, Jagabandhu Majhi, a few weeks ago.

The Assembly constituency had been a traditional Congress bastion all along. However, BJP, a former coalition partner with BJD, had won the seat in 2004. But the sitting BJP MLA, Dharmu Gond, had been defeated by the ruling BJD nominee, Jagabandhu Majhi, following break up of the alliance.

This tribal belt was a Congress stronghold with the party winning Koraput and Nabarangpur Lok Sabha seats consecutively for more than 10 terms since Independence. While former Union minister and nine-time Koraput MP Giridhar Gamang was defeated for the first time in 2009 polls, neighbouring Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency is still represented by Congress candidate Pradip Majhi.

Political observers and critics noted that the Congress had deliberately chosen Raighar, which falls in the Umerkote Assembly constituency, to observe Indira’s death anniversary in a grand way keeping an eye on the upcoming bypoll.

However, Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik said: “The bypoll has nothing to do with observing her death anniversary there, as made out by the media and our political opponents. The late Prime Minister had addressed a meeting there just a day before her death.”Local MP Pradip Majhi was also present on the occasion.

In sharp contrast, the observance of Indira’s death anniversary was a low-key affair in the state capital. Political party leaders and workers garlanded the statue of Indira Gandhi at the Indira Gandhi Park, from where she had addressed her last public meeting.

“I will fight for the unity and integrity of the nation till my last drop of blood,” she said in her last speech. A meeting was held at the Congress state headquarters here to commemorate her death anniversary today.