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Jayadev Jena will continue as PCC president: Ajay Maken

— Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

Jaydev Jena, President Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee addressing a State-level executive meeting of sevadal in Bhubaneswar on Saturday.

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa in-charge of All-India Congress Committee and Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken on Saturday said that there was no question of dropping Pradesh Congress Committee president Jayadev Jena from the post.

“PCC president Jayadev Jena is not going to be changed,” Mr. Maken said while responding to queries from presspersons after he arrived here on a two-day visit to the State. He is scheduled to participate in a peace march in violence-affected Kandhamal district on Sunday. The statement of Mr. Maken assumed significance as a large group of legislators and senior leaders of the party were camping in New Delhi since Thursday and meeting top party leaders seeking removal of Mr. Jena from his post.

The latest round of revolt against Mr. Jena’s leadership started after the party failed to perform well in the urban local body polls held in the State last month.

Prominent among Mr. Jena’s detractors who had reached New Delhi to meet the party high command include Niranjan Patnaik, Ananta Prasad Sethi, and Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra.

It is not for the first time that Mr. Jena is facing opposition from his party colleagues. In his four-and-a-half-year stint as PCC president, Mr. Jena has faced several rounds of revolts against his leadership. But his enemies have always returned from New Delhi without achieving the target.

According to a senior Congress leader, several leaders have been making serious efforts to become president of the PCC in the recent months. “While Mr. Jena has been making efforts to oust Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik from power by defeating the ruling BJD-BJP alliance in the next elections, many of our party leaders who perpetuate family rule have been working hard to oust him from his post,” the leader said on condition of anonymity.

“A number of Congress leaders were yet to accept Mr. Jena as their leader for the simple reason that he was a Dalit,” the leader observed. It is learnt that the party high command was in favour of Mr. Jena leading the party to the coming polls as the party wanted to attract the Dalits, who constituted 17 per cent of the total population of the State.

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