Bhubaneswar: In a major setback to the Odisha Congress, at least 41 party workers supporting expelled leader and former MLA Mohammed Moquim resigned from the party on Saturday, expressing strong dissent against the state leadership.

Senior and grassroots leaders among those who quit

According to sources, those who submitted resignation letters include a former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) secretary, a former party spokesperson, former block Congress presidents, a Mahila Congress secretary, along with several youth and student leaders.

Anger over state leadership and party functioning

The resigning workers cited what they described as “ineffective and directionless leadership” of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) under its current president Bhakta Charan Das.

“We do not accept the process through which the state Congress is functioning. The Odisha Congress has failed to raise issues of the people of the State. A political party should function with a clear goal reflecting national and state issues, as well as the mindset of its workers,” said a party leader after tendering his resignation.

‘Party focused only on elections’

The leader further alleged that the Congress in Odisha has been reduced to an election-centric organisation, ignoring its own leaders and grassroots workers.

“Congress has completely failed in Odisha as it works only to win elections, ignoring its leaders and workers. Despite this, we had faith in the party and raised Odisha’s issues with the national leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge, but our efforts yielded no result,” the leader said.

Nuapada bypoll failure cited

The dissenting leaders also pointed to the Congress’ poor performance in the Nuapada by-election, alleging that the party failed to introspect or review the reasons behind the defeat.

“Even after the debacle in the Nuapada by-election, the Congress did not review the causes of failure,” the leader added.

Fallout of Moquim’s expulsion

The mass resignation followed the expulsion of senior Congress leader Mohammed Moquim. The dissident workers alleged that the decision was arbitrary and highlighted a growing disconnect between the state leadership and grassroots cadres.

Moquim hints at new political outfit

The development comes days after Mohammed Moquim, former MLA from Barabati-Cuttack, announced that a new political party is likely to be launched by the end of March.