Against the backdrop of its poor performance in the Lok Sabha Assembly elections, the All India Congress Committee on Sunday dissolved the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) with the state president and all office bearers being removed from their posts with immediate effect.

The drastic step of this nature was expected in view of the Lok Sabha debacle. Besides serious questions were being raised by party cadres on the leadership of Sarat Pattanayak, who was the president of the now dissolved Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee.

The AICC approved the proposal for the complete dissolution of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee, including its president, PCC, office bearers and executive committee, District/Block/Mandal Congress Committees, Frontal Organisations, Departments, and Cells, with immediate effect, a statement issued by the party said.

“The current DCC presidents will serve as acting presidents until new DCC Presidents are appointed,” the statement added.

In another development, the AICC also appointed Rama Chandra Kadam as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) while Ashok Das was appointed Deputy leader CLP, and CS Raazen Ekka appointed Congress chief whip.

The Indian National Congress, once a powerhouse in Odisha politics, remained out of power since 2000 amid dipping vote share. The uninterrupted sequence of electoral drubbing goes unabated for the party which failed to cash in on the anti-incumbency against the 24-year-old Naveen Patnaik Government.

The party, which is relegated to third spot yet again in the State, ended up in winning 14 out of the 147 assembly seats while it managed to retain the Koraput parliament seat.

The Party lost its pan-Odisha yet again losing in the majority of constituencies. The only silver lining in an otherwise negative situation lies in the fact that the party managed to hold its ground in Rayagada and the undivided Koraput districts. Despite its Assembly seats increasing from 9 to 14 in 2024 polls, Congress’s vote share dipped from 16 per cent to 13.26 per cent. On the other hand, the vote share of BJD and BJP was much higher at 40.22% and 40.07% respectively.

The Congress has been on a steady decline since 2000 when it lost to the BJD-BJP alliance in assembly polls. Since then, the party’s fortune has been on a steady downslide. Its worst humiliation was witnessed in the 2017 panchayat polls when it managed to win just 66 of the 849 zilla parishad seats. Since then, the party hit by intra-party wrangling mostly over leadership issues has failed to regain the ‘lost’ political space in the State.

The Party’s dismal show was writ large on the wall ahead of the polls. The defeat of party heavyweights former union minister Bhakta Charan Das, Niranjan Pattnaik, and Jayadev Jena (Former Odisha Congress Presidents) besides the incumbent president Pattnaik in the Assembly polls is a case in point to voters’ rejection of discredited old guards. It remains to be seen whether AICC sticks to old guards or opts for a fresh and better face for party leadership.