Even as Lok Sabha and Assembly polls were just a few months away, expelled Congress leader Soumya Ranjan Patnaik has started making preparations to launch a new regional political party.
Mr. Patnaik, a former Member of Parliament who was expelled from the Congress last month, told journalists on Monday that he would organise a Sankalp Samabesh at Birmaharajpur in Subarnapur district on November 25.
The Samabesh would be organised to explore the possibilities of providing a political alternative, Mr. Patnaik said, while indicating that he would float a new party and approach the Election Commission of India for its recognition.
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Mr. Patnaik, son-in-law of Assam Governor J.B. Patnaik, had started exploring the possibility of launching a new party after he was expelled from Congress for six years for anti-party activities.
The former MP had in fact started organising Sankalp Samabesh at different places after his elder brother Niranjan Patnaik was ousted from the post of president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee. But his action was viewed as an attempt to run a parallel organisation within the Congress and the same had led to his expulsion.
According to sources, Mr. Patnaik and his supporters were now trying to convince their supporters in the Congress and make them join the new political outfit. They are hoping that many Congress leaders who were not feeling comfortable in the party will join them.
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If Mr. Patnaik’s new party gets the support of some Congress leaders it may hamper the poll prospects of Congress in a similar manner in which the Odisha Jan Morcha, floated by Rajya Sabha Member Pyarimohan Mohapatra, was likely to affect ruling Biju Janata Dal’s prospects, according to political analysts.
Since little time was left to strengthen the new party across the State before the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, it is being said that Mr. Patnaik’s new party may join an alliance of non-Congress and non-BJD parties about which Mr. Mohapatra had started talking in recent weeks.