TNI Bureau: Amid continuing tension following recent violence in Odisha’s Malkangiri district, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) has announced that a Congress delegation led by PCC President Bhakta Charan Das will visit the district on December 23 in an effort to help restore peace.

Nearly two weeks after the violence, normalcy is yet to return to the area. Although Deputy Chief Minister K.V. Singh Deo and Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Minister Gokulananda Mallik recently visited Malkangiri and held discussions with local administration and representatives of the tribal and Bengali communities, the situation on the ground remains tense.

In the meantime, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) from the Malkangiri District Collector and Superintendent of Police regarding the recent clashes between the tribal and Bengali communities.

The Congress has alleged that unresolved local issues and administrative inaction have led to growing dissatisfaction between the communities, creating serious law and order concerns in the district.

Against this backdrop, the PCC has decided to intervene politically and socially to assess the situation firsthand. The Congress delegation will visit the most affected MV-26 area and nearby localities.

The delegation will include Congress Legislature Party leader Ramchandra Kadam, Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, all Congress MLAs from the undivided Koraput district, former MPs and MLAs, Mahila Congress president Meenakshi Bahinipati, the PCC media department president, and senior advocates Nishikanta Mishra, Lalatendu Das, and Manoj Nayak.

According to the PCC, the visit aims to interact with affected communities, understand their grievances, and work towards restoring peace and communal harmony in the region.