41 Congress Leaders Quit Odisha Unit in Support of Mohammed Moquim

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Congress suffered a major setback on Saturday as 41 party leaders and workers, supporting expelled leader and former MLA Mohammed Moquim, tendered their mass resignation, citing strong dissent against the state leadership.

Those who resigned include a former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) secretary, a former party spokesperson, several former block Congress presidents, a Mahila Congress secretary, along with a number of youth and student leaders.

The mass resignation has brought to the fore growing internal unrest within the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC). The resigning leaders accused OPCC president Bhakta Charan Das of providing “ineffective and directionless leadership,” alleging that the state unit has failed to address public issues and ignored the concerns of grassroots workers.

They further claimed that the party has become overly election-centric, with little emphasis on organisational strengthening or internal democracy. The dissidents also pointed to the party’s poor performance in the Nuapada by-election, alleging that the leadership failed to conduct any serious introspection or review following the defeat.

The resignations are widely seen as a fallout of Mohammed Moquim’s expulsion from the party, which the workers termed arbitrary. Notably, Moquim has recently held a series of public meetings and announced plans to float a new political party by the end of March.