Former Odisha CM Giridhar Gamang and family rejoin Congress
Former Odisha Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang along with his wife and former MLA Hema Gamang and son Sishir Gamang rejoined the Congress party in Delhi today.
Bhubaneswar: Former Odisha Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang along with his wife and former MLA Hema Gamang and son Sishir Gamang rejoined the Congress party in Delhi today. Former MP Sanjay Bhoi will also rejoin the grand old party.
OPCC in-charge Ajoy Kumar along with several senior party leaders welcomed the 80-year-old former Odisha chief minister and others to the party.
The Gamang family had earlier ended its 43-year-long association with the grand old party in 2015 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Later, they left BJP and joined Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of K. Chandrashekar Rao.
It is to be noted here that Gamang is a prominent tribal leader in Odisha. He was elected for the first time to the 5th Lok Sabha from Koraput in 1972. Subsequently, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 2004. He was the Chief Minister of Odisha from 17 February 1999 to 6 December 1999.
Gamang was also the union minister for 11 years in during the tenure of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. He became the chief minister of Odisha on February 18, 1999, but his term was cut short on December 6 of the same year by the party after 10,000 people died due to the 1999 super cyclone.
Ms Kalinga