Rourkela: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who led the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra into Odisha on Wednesday, accused the ruling BJD and the opposition BJP of running a “partnership government” in the state. Addressing the public on his way from Rourkela to Sundargarh, a route that took him through tribal-dominated areas, he also raked up issues of large-scale migration, injustice to tribals and backward classes, and “loot” of natural resources by industrialists.

After AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge spoke on the same theme at a rally in Bhubaneswar on January 29, Rahul is the second senior Congress leader to have taken this line of attack. His allegations come barely a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a visit to Odisha, refrained from attacking the Patnaik government.

Gandhi referred to BJD’s support to the Modi government inside and outside Parliament on a range of issues, including passage of key legislations, and the top leadership of both parties showering praises on each other. “The partnership government of Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi is being run here in Odisha. Both are hand in glove and work together, which I can see in the Parliament. The Congress is fighting against both parties here,” said Gandhi, setting the tone for the party’s Odisha unit for the upcoming polls.

Congress sources said the party hopes this line of attack could help revive its organisation, which has been pushed to the brink following repeated electoral losses. Gandhi also said that while 30 lakh people from Odisha have migrated to other states to work as labourers, 30 billionaires have come here from outside to loot the state’s resources.

Said Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, “It’s true that our organisation has weakened. Many of our leaders have also left the party. To infuse life to our organisation, we carried out Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022 and are now doing the Nyay Yatra.”

Congress sources said the route selection was meant to reinvigorate the party in a region where the Congress once had a strong presence. The party’s tribal face and former chief minister Hemananda Biswal had last won the Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat in 2009. In Bargarh, too, the party’s candidate had won in 2009.