We are responsible for our poor show in Panchayat polls: Ex-PCC chief

Bhubaneswar: Senior Congress leader former president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik today attributed lack of coordination and discipline among the party leaders to the miserable show of Congress in the ongoing three-tier Panchayat polls in Odisha.

“We should not blame anyone for the dismal show of Congress. We are solely responsible for it. There was no discipline in the party. We have utterly failed in reaching out to the people at the right time. We have not made sincere efforts to make the people believe us. There is no point in blaming others as we have to accept the defeat and respect the people’s mandate,” Patnaik told media persons here.

Talking about the outcome of the Panchayat polls, Niranjan said “What I have observed that the people of Odisha have started turning their back to the ruling BJD. They are yet to repose their trust with the Congress. Since they have no choice, they have chosen BJP as their alternative choice,” Patnaik pointed out.

Asked about the total number of seats his party is going to get in the five-phase polls, the former PCC president said “It was beyond my imagination that Congress could fare so poorly in this election. I expected that the party would maintain around the same number of seats it had retained in the last Panchayat polls. But I hope that the results in last three phase polls would improve.”