New Delhi: Congress Prsident Sonia Gandhi is in a bind. Having
decided to impulsively seek Orissa Chief Minister J.B.Patnaik's
resignation, she is being hit by a rapid-fire backlash from the
Orissa state unit, obviously at the prompting of an unhappy
Patnaik itching to form own Orissa Rajiv Congress.

She also can not retract and return Patnaik's resignation as
that will amount to erosion of the authority she has established
over the party. Nor can she afford the party splitting for
forcing Patnaik to resign.

Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi was, therefore, quite emphatic that
it was up to the Congress President to decide what to do with
the resignation that Patanaik "volunteered" and that he
disagrees with AICC General Secretary Madhavrao Scindia that
once the resignation has been submitted has to be accepted.
Patnaik is the longest surviving chief minister.

Out of a total of 82 Congress MLAs in the state, 68 have signed
and sent a memorandum to the Congress President reposing faith
in the chief minister and informing her of the steps taken by
the chief minister ranging from the Anjana Mishra rape case to
the nun's rape case, though at the end they have also stated
that they would abide by whatever decision is taken by her.

Indications Wednesday night were that Sonia Gandhi was being
forced to accept only a nominee of Patnaik as his successor as
the only way to prevent him from splitting the party. The
decision may come by weekend as the Congress President is still
consulting various leaders.

Sonia Gandhi does not want to give an impression that the
dissidents' persistent demand for removal of Patnaik had
anything to do with his forced resignation and hence the
dissidents have not lost time in pointing out that the party
high command holding Patnaik guilty of attacks on Christians in
the state was not acceptable to even them, irrespective of
howsoever they dislike his leadership.

A  number of senior party leaders like former chief minister
Nandini Satpathy have gone on record to state that it was wrong
to ask the chief minister to own moral responsibility for what
was happening in the state "since we are all collectively
responsible. I do not know why he has been asked to resign",
said Satpathy, clearly not in agreement with Sonia's directive.

Despite the fact that the majority of the party MLAs are still
obviously with the belagured chief minister as they had also
threatened to re-elect him as the leader when the CLP meeting is
held, Sonia Gandhi does not appear to be in a position to
retract from her position and ask him to stay on.

Patnaik's days as CM, however, are  numbered though the official
process of selecting his successor would only begin at the
outset of next week. A four member team of obs4ervors including
the aicc general secretary in charge of the state would leave
for Bhuwaneshwar to begin the sifting of names.

A senior leader disclosed that any move now by Sonia to retrace
her steps would end up eroding her authority within the party, a
scenario she can ill afford. The Congress President had been
keen for some time to remove Patnaik from the Chief
Ministership, but a number of party veterans aver that the move
appears to be ill-timed.

According to a CWC member, the move to remove Patnaik on the
Christian issue would only give the BJP a handle to criticize her
Christian leanings and justify the BJP's Hindu agenda. The
intense pressure mounted by the anti-Patnaik lobby in the state
would also speed up moves by dissidents in other states as the
signal would go down the line that pressure tactics can work
with the party president.

Sources disclose that J.B.Patnaik is also likely to submit his
resignation to the Orissa Governor after February 15, since that
would give the leadership time to firm up his successor and
ensure a smooth transition of power.

Patnaik is learnt to have asked Sonia to give him time till
February 15 as the Finance Commission team is arriving in the
state capital then. A number of mega projects including power,
infrastructure, road and transport sectors had been promised and
initiated by Patnaik and he would like to personally see through
their clearance "so that I am able to keep the promises I had
made to the people", said patnaik to Sonia. He would himself
like to take the credit for their implementation if they are
cleared by the Commission. Sonia is learnt to have agreed to his
request.

Andhra Pradesh Governor C.Rangarajan who is also the acting
governor of Orissa has also not so far been informed of any
decision by the Orissa Chief minister that he would like to
submit his resignation since the Governor would have to go to
Bhubaneshwar to accept Patnaik's resignation in person. "I
cannot take cognizance of newspaper reports", is learnt to be
Rangarajan's views on the matter.

A number of names are doing the rounds as more than one leader
has joined the race for succession. An AICC functionary said
that Sonia's first priority would be to choose a leader who can
lead the party to victory in the February 2000 assembly
elections in the state. The leader should have all around
acceptability plus a clean image.

The party leadership would prefer a tribal at this stage but
since the Orissa PCC president Basant Biswal is a tribal, that
would mean changing the PCC president also. Apart from that
Basant Biswal has been a prominent dissident against Patnaik.
The same is the case with Hemanand Biswal, a backward and the
deputy chief minister who has been fighting a pitched battle
for the removal of the chief minister.

A frontrunner in the race is the tribal leader and a former
union minister Giridhar Gomago who has won eight lok sabha
elections. Gomango has been asked by the AICC general secretary
in charge of orissa Madhav rao Scindia to stay put in Delhi
though Scindia himself has gone to his home town Gwalior and is
only ecpected back in Delhi by February 14.

Gomago has said that it was he who as the PCC president in 1995
who led the party to victory in the state though Patnaik was
made the chief minister instead of him. He said that he would be
the natural successor after Patnaik's resigns.

Amongst the others who are in the race are former union minister
K.P.Singh Deo, former chief Minister Nandini Satpathy or even a
dark horse whose name is so far not in the limelight.

When Sonia Gandhi asked Patnaik to submit his resignation on
Monday night the chief minister asked for some time and after
informing Madhav Rao Scindia and Pranab Mukherjee of what she
had said he was told that since the party president had demanded
it he should resign. He then went back to 10, Janpath with a one
line resignation letter but told her that he would himself
announce it later as he needed some time.

Delhi however pre-empted him with Scindia announcing the next
day that Patnaik had submitted his resignation to Sonia Gandhi
and now it was upto her to decide what was to be done. Scindia
is known to have been backing Patnaik fully and the decision
does not appear to have been taken after consulting him.

It is learnt that after a new Chief Minister is elected, Sonia
would not like to keep Patnaik in Orissa as that can only create
problems for the party with Patnaik still having a powerful hold
on both the party and the government in the state. A senior
position may be offered to him in Delhi, though the modalities
of that have still not been worked out. END.
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(see our previous story)