Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party top leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would visit Odisha in January next, informed PCC president Sarat Pattanayak, who is on a one-day tour to Sundargarh district, on Sunoday.
At a meeting with the AICC in New Delhi recently, PCC leaders and party MLAs from the State had requested Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to visit Odisha in January. Accepting the offer, the central leadership expressed their interest to organise a party programme in Sundargarh district, Pattanayak said.
The tribals-dominated Sundargarh was once a Congress bastion. Pattanayak said the AICC now wants to focus on Sundargarh as well as western Odisha. For this, a former IPS officer from the neighbouring Jharkhand who is a former MP from Jamshedpur, Dr Ajay Kumar, has been given the responsibility as the party’s State in-charge.
