Suspended Congress leader and former MLA Chiranjib Biswal has claimed that he was a victim of a conspiracy hatched by a ”coterie of some people who have never won any elections”.
Biswal and Barabati-Cuttack MLA Mohammad Moquim were recently suspended from the Congress for ”anti-party activities”.
”I hail from a Congress family. I and my brother (former IPL chairman and ex-MP Ranjib Biswal) have always worked to make the party stronger in Odisha,” said the son of former deputy chief minister and Congress stalwart of yesteryears, Basant Biswal.
Biswal, who won assembly elections in 2004 and 2014 despite a strong BJD wave, told reporters on Monday, ”Some people, who have never won any elections in the last 25 years, are conspiring against me.” He claimed that the people of Jagatsinghpur district are with him and he will contest next year’s polls ”if need be, even as an independent candidate”.
He claimed that the Congress’s vote share has been on the decline in every by-election in the state since 2019.
Noting that the suspension has hurt him, Biswal urged party activists and workers to save the party from the ”coterie”.
Referring to OPCC president Sarat Pattnayak’s slogan of ‘9 to 99’ (winning 99 seats in the 147-member assembly from its current nine MLAs), Biswal said, ”If the Congress leaders think they can achieve the target without me, I wish them good luck.” He said that it was alleged that remarks made by him during a party meeting on May 8 were responsible for the party’s poor performance in the Jharsuguda by-election.
”If that was the case, why did the party perform poorly also in Dhamnagar and Padampur bypolls? In the meeting, I only expressed my views of strengthening the party. Is it wrong to give suggestions for the betterment of Congress?” he added.
