Congress poor show in Odisha rural polls claims its first victim, AICC in-charge BK Hariprasad resigns

By Our Correspondent

BHUBANESWAR, MARCH 14: Congress’ rout in the Odisha Panchayat Polls has claimed its first victim in the form of All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and State in-charge, BK Hariprasad.

According to AICC Media panelist, Brijesh Kalappa, Hariprasad has resigned from both his posts.

Kalappa also said that Hariprasad’s resignation from the general secretary post to facilitate restructuring of the party to strengthen its organisation at the grassroots level and to provide better control to AICC vice president, Rahul Gandhi.

“Hariprasad resigned because the performance of Congress in Odisha Panchayat polls was not good. That is the why he resigned saying that he want to facilitate Rahul Gandhi to build his own team and strengthen his hold on the party,” said Kalappa.

Some of the senior Congress leaders in Odisha had blamed the Odisha Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan and state in-charge Mr Prasad for its debacle in the rural polls. They had also openly demanded their resignation.

In rural polls held in February this year, the Congress got only 60 Zilla Parishad (ZP) seats as against 128 seats it had won in 2012 elections. The poor show marked the grand old party finishing the distant third, allowing the BJP to occupy the number two slot in state. The saffron party got 297 seats while the ruling BJD finished the top in the table with 473 seats.

Not only in rural polls, the AICC in-charge had seen his party doing worse in the 2014 assembly election by slipping to 16 seats from 27 in 2009 polls.

Hariprasad had failed to bring unity among the warring factions in the state Congress unit.