We notice you have started raising your voice on many issues after remaining silent for a few months following your party’s debacle in the last general election. It seems you (he was the party’s state campaign committee chairman) have accepted the defeat and now plan to move ahead…

Yes, we lost the electoral battle against Naveen. But I can say that Naveen has lost the political battle from the day when they moved away from Janata Dal, a secular force, and joined hands with the BJP backed by the RSS. After honeymooning with them for a decade, they broke the alliance. Now they have tactfully started reviving their relationship with the BJP because the party is in power at the Centre. It’s clearly visible. While his MPs are supporting the BJP at the national level, his party is opposing the BJP at the state level. Naveen is in a confused state of mind. That’s why I say we have politically defeated him. After the Bihar elections, new politics has emerged, and the secular forces have joined hands. Now it’s for Naveen to take the call — will he come to the secular fold or remain with the BJP?

You are trying to score a point over Naveen, but the reality is that the Congress had been decimated in the last election in Odisha despite you heading the campaign committee.  

In the last election, an anti-Congress feeling had emerged against the Congress party across the country for various reasons. If you analyse the general election, you will find that had the Opposition been united, the result would have been different. However, the anti-Naveen forces got divided. But the situation is changing fast after the Bihar election. Now he has to take a call on issues such as whether the government should go beyond 50 per cent job reservation or not. In Bihar, it is the Mandal forces (seeking benefits for the OBCs) who have emerged successful in the election. The reservation of jobs for the backwards remain a key issue in Odisha too. 

What had gone wrong with the Congress in the state?

We have to ponder over what went wrong and how to reach out to the masses. Naveen hogged the credit for all the Congress-led UPA government’s welfare schemes, including the Re 1-a-kg rice scheme while the fact was that the Centre was taking the real financial burden in providing subsidised rice to the people. (It had been further subsidised by the Naveen Patnaik government to make rice available at Re 1). Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi had done everything to ensure that people benefited from the scheme. But we failed to take credit for this.  Similarly, with the assistance of the Centre, 36,000km roads were built across the state under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and schools were opened under the Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan, but Naveen appropriated the credit for these and got elected to power again.

Wouldn’t you admit that it was failure on the part of your party to convince the people that all these schemes were conceived and implemented by the UPA government and not the state government? 

Yes. I do agree there was some problem in the Congress party and we had failed to communicate our success story to the masses. We silently watched when the Naveen Patnaik government put his logo on our T-shirts and claimed that the T-shirts belonged to him.

You cannot blame Naveen for this. You have failed because of the conflict within your party.

I don’t disagree. The kind of campaign that was required (to fight the election), we failed to do it. Six medical colleges came up in the state during the UPA’s regime, but we failed to convey it to the people.

One of the factors that contributed to the party’s poor showing was the distribution of party tickets. That 
is what many Congress leaders have said in public. It was alleged that deserving candidates did not get the tickets and the party paid the price… 

That’s not the issue. Many bright candidates were given tickets but they lost. Even PCC president Prasad Harichandan, who had been adjudged the best legislator, was defeated in the election. That was a big surprise. 

There were allegations that money changed hands during the distribution of tickets…

I have no idea about it. We have to move forward and not look at what had happened in the past. The reverse swing (the mood against the Narendra Modi government) has started with the Bihar election. In Odisha, all forces should unite and expose the Naveen Patnaik government.

Are you including the BJP in it? 

No, no! All secular forces must unite to defeat the BJP as well as Naveen.

Does it imply that those individuals, who had left the Congress or were driven out, should be brought back to the party fold?

Individuals do not matter in a national party such as Congress. Individually, even I am a small man. Here is the party’s agenda - social justice, inclusive growth and secularism. These have to be followed. These are not someone’s personal agenda. Those individuals chose to leave the party and spent money to see that the Congress got defeated. They have achieved their goal. At present, it’s not the individuals, but the programmes and policies that are important. Party workers will have to follow such things diligently.

What’s your view about the demand of a section of the party that Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, who quit the party before the election, be brought back to the Congress fold. 

This is an internal party matter. I don’t want to comment on this. These are all individual cases. We should talk about current issues on how the Congress could take the issue of farmer suicides more effectively to the people. 

What are the issues that you would like to take up against the Naveen Patnaik government? 

His government’s stoic silence on various issues, including job reservation for OBCs. 

Why don’t you suggest your party to take up the issue? 

I will be telling my party to take up the issue seriously. The politics over the Mandal issue in Odisha has to start. In order to achieve this and to strengthen the Congress, all secular forces and individuals should get united under a common platform. But the Naveen Patnaik government should make its stand clear on the issue of reservation. (In Odisha, OBCs, instead of getting 27 per cent reservation in jobs, are getting only 11.25 per cent reservation.)

Don’t you feel you would be sidelined in the Congress for raising the issue?

When I had raised the issue of Mandal, (when Jena was in the Janata Dal), all efforts were made to sideline me. Ultimately, Biju Patnaik lost the election in 1996. Had he accepted the recommendations of the Mandal, he would have won the elections and continued as chief minister. He was the only chief minister who had gone to the Supreme Court challenging the Mandal recommendations. Later, he was isolated in the Janata Dal.  Today, Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar have secured two-thirds majority in the Bihar Assembly because of this social empowerment. In Odisha, the burning issue today is - farmers are committing suicide. The Congress has already taken up the issue in a big way. 

The state government has already announced a series of measures to help the farmers in distress… 

The prevailing scenario on the agriculture front remains exactly as it was 20 years ago. But, the situation now is such that farmers are being forced to commit suicide. The banks are not coming to their rescue. Co-operative banks are not giving loans to farmers at the time of their need. Ultimately, hapless farmers are depending on private moneylenders. They are helpless. A bad crop makes some of them to commit suicide. Let’s accept the reality. We have failed to give a boost to the agricultural sector. There has been no visible improvement in irrigation. The agriculture department has failed to convey the weather forecast to the farmers well in advance. The department of agriculture should have taken pre-emptive steps to meet the situation. 

You are always critical of the Naveen Patnaik government. The fact is that it has taken a number of steps. The ministers have been asked to visit rural areas and stand by the farmers.

This is of no use. Do the ministers have a say in the state? Even a joint secretary and a clerk in the state secretariat have more say in the government than the ministers. The government machinery should have been tuned before the situation arose. The government was casual in its approach and agriculture was not on its priority list. Look at the state government’s economic survey and the national survey. Only 20 per cent of land is being irrigated.

The Congress is trying to politicise the issue of farmers... 

We are raising the issue so that the government becomes pro-active and does something to protect the farmers. Even Rahul Gandhi had visited Odisha on this issue. We want to solve the problem and not politicise the issue. We sincerely hope that farmers do not take drastic steps. I fail to understand why the chief minister is not visiting the drought-affected areas. The state government should provide electricity free of cost to farmers at least for a period of 10 years. If Bihar can boast of a 10 per cent growth in agriculture, why can’t we?