Rajendra Prasad Mohapatra

The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Friday appointed presidents for several districts in Odisha ahead of the 2024 General Elections. Jeypore MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati’s wife, Meenakshi Bahinipati has been replaced as Koraput district president.

Durga Sankar Sahu has replaced Meenakshi as the new president of Koraput district. Among others, Suresh Kumar Ajad, Mohan Parida, Jairam Pattanaik, Ashok Das, Sangram Mishra, Asif Ali Khan, Danardan Dehury, Bijoy Kumar Gomango, and Sem Hembram have been appointed as the presidents of Nuapada, Keonjhar, Puri, Bhadrak, Angul, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Rayagada and Deogarh respectively.

Moreover, Jagneswar Babu has been appointed as the chairman of the AICC Programme Implementation Committee for the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee. Sanjay Tripathy will head the Publicity and Publication Committee. Senior leader Panchanan Kanungo has been appointed as Manifesto Committee chairman of the Odisha unit. 

Similarly, Kantabanji MLA Santosh Singh Salluja has been appointed chairman of the Disciplinary Action Committee. Janaki Ballav Pattanaik is the convenor of the disciplinary committee. Bhujabala Majhi, Rajendra Chhatria, Debendra and Pratima Mallik have been appointed as members of the Disciplinary Action Committee.

Meanwhile, politics has intensified over the removal of Meenakshi as the president of Koraput district. Meenakshi was at the helm of the affairs in Koraput for a long time. She expressed her resentment against the move openly and said that Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka is responsible for it.

“I will leave the post after getting the message. I think Koraput MP is responsible for my removal. He is in Delhi and he doesn’t have any idea about Koraput. He is in the upper level and he doesn’t have any idea about the condition of Congress workers in Koraput district. Had he been aware of the ground reality, he wouldn’t have made a rift within the Congress party,” said Meenakshi.

However, no comments have been received from Ulaka in this regard.

Reports of rift in the Koraput unit of the Congress have been doing rounds for quite some time. The alleged rift between 4-time Jeypore MLA Tara and debutant Koraput MP Ulaka came to the fore again some days back when the former expressed his displeasure over his wife being inducted as a PCC secretary, as it suggested her removal from the post of district Congress president, and hinted at Ulaka’s role in it.
 

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