Bhubaneswar, May 5: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Monday constituted a 10-member Political Affairs Committee, the highest panel to look into core political issues, triggering a debate in the political sector of the State.

While party supremo Naveen Patnaik heads the committee, nine others, who supported VK Pandian before and after elections, have been its members. They are Bikram Keshari Arukh, Pramila Mallick, Niranjan Pujari, Sanjay Kumar Das Burma, Pranab Prakash Das, Sudam Marndi, Tukuni Sahu, Dr Sasmit Patra and Dr Santrupta Mishra.

What fuels the discussion is that the party has listed the organisational secretary post and pushed its past holder, Pranab Prakash Das, to the ninth position in the party. Political analysts view that Naveen lifted the organisation secretary post as protests erupted against Pranab Prakash Das in the aftermath of the elections. Das was the third highest powerful person in the BJD.

Interestingly, senior leaders like Sashi Bhushan Mishra, Bhupinder Singh and Prafull Mallik, who opposed Pandian in the aftermath of the elections, have been kept out of the organisational posts.

"The BJD formed the Political Affairs Committee after a gap of many years. it stopped the post of organisational secretary. Those who supported Pandian have been in the core panel, which can be called the Pandian Affairs Committee," remarked an analyst.

The party has announced the names of 71 office-bearers, including senior vice-presidents and senior general secretaries. Senior Vice-President Debi Prasad Mishra and Vice-President Pratap Jena have been entrusted with headquarters charge.

The party also named presidents for six organisational districts, taking the number of district presidents named so far to 24. The party is still to choose presidents for nine districts.

On the other hand, Naveen has also tried to pacify the agitators. Leaders like Prasanna Acharya, Ananga Uday Singhdeo, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Badri Patra, Debasish Samantaray, Arun Sahu, Mahesh Sahu, Ramesh Chandra Chyau Patnaik have been rehabilitated as heads of various wings of the BJD.

The most important thing is that Naveen has tried to remove the confusion by keeping both young and old in the 71-member state office-bearers committee.

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