Former Odisha Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang and two members of his family joined Congress

New Delhi:17/1/24: Veteran tribal leader and former Odisha Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang and two members of his family along with former Bargarh MP Sanjay Bhoi joined Congress in New Delhi on Wednesday. The four leaders, including Gamang, his wife and former Koraput MP Hemabati Gamang, their son Sishir Gamang, and Sanjay returned to the grand old party in the presence of Congress Treasurer Ajay Maken and party’s Odisha in-charge Dr Ajoy Kumar.

Welcoming the four leaders into the party, Maken said Gamang and his family had made significant contributions to the development of Odisha and its people. With the Gamang family and former Bargarh MP rejoining Congress, the party would be further strengthened, he said. Earlier, the four leaders had met Odisha in-charge Ajoy Kumar in New Delhi on Saturday.

.Notably, the Congress, with an eye on the 2024 elections, has been planning to facilitate the return of a host of senior leaders of the party, who had deserted the party under different circumstances.

Since August last year, around eight months after leaving the BJP and joining the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), the Gamangs have been contemplating a return to the Congress, which they had quit in 2015, as the BRS has no such immediate plan for Odisha. Both Giridhar Gamang and his son resigned from the primary membership of the BJP on January 25, 2023, and joined the BRS two days later. A nine-time MP from Koraput Lok Sabha constituency between 1972 and 2004, Giridhar Gamang had last contested from the seat in the 2014 elections and lost to Jhina Hikaka of the BJD.

Sanjay, son of Krupasindhu Bhoi, had won from Bargarh Lok Sabha constituency on a Congress ticket in the 2009 elections with 3.97 lakh votes. Despite polling over 2.74 lakh votes, he finished third behind the BJD and BJP candidates in 2014. He quit the Congress and joined the BJP after being denied ticket in 2019 elections.

Though Congress is yet to begin a formal exercise for candidate selection, Bhoi may get a ticket from Bargarh in the upcoming elections, the sources added.