Bhubaneswar: Newly appointed Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Sarat Pattnayak has announced the launching of Mission-90 (90 seats) for the 2024 State Assembly elections and expressed confidence to achieve the goal.
Patttnayak said this on Friday after formally taking charge as the new OPCC president by replacing senior leader Niranjan Patnaik.
“Keeping in view the acceptance of the people across the state, particularly in the recently concluded Brajrajnagar by-polls, we are confident that the Congress will form the government after 2024 elections,” he said.
Hitting at the 22 year–old BJD government led by chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the new OPCC president said the common people have not gained anything even as the rich have become richer in the last two decades.
“There has been an increase in migration of people as youths go to places like Surat, Mumbai, Delhi and other places in search of work while the BJD government has been claiming to have setting up industries and solving unemployment problem,” he said.
Pattnayak also alleged that the ruling BJD and the Opposition BJP have joined hands for their mutual benefits while people are suffering.
He asked the Congress rank and file to reach each household in the state and ensure that the people get to know the real character of the BJD and the BJP.
In his bid to infuse confidence among the party workers and leaders, Pattnayak said that Mission-90 is not impossible as the Congress had formed government by securing 90 seats in 1995 elections even as it had only 10 MLAs in 1990.
He claimed that people would certainly favour Congress next time and the party will form government in the state even as it has been out of power since 2000.
Pattnayak, who returned from Delhi after meeting Rahul Gandhi, was taken in a huge rally from the airport to the Congress Bhavan where leaders from different districts had assembled to greet him. He sought the cooperation of the party workers to reclaim the lost glory of the party and not lose heart over the rise of BJP and BJD in the state.
PTI