Sonia needs to decide if she should return as Cong president: Odisha stalwart R.C. Khuntia

"She was a good president and was doing better. She served as the president for the longest term. This is for the AICC to decide whether she should come back as president. I think, she herself is not interested due to her poor health," Khuntia told IANS.

He said there are still a couple of years left in the current Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's five-year term to end and a decision on the next party chief will be taken when the time comes.

Reacting to some veteran Congress leaders like Kapil Sibal and Ghulam Nabi Azad jumping ship, he said, "People with vested interests have left Congress. Kapil Sibal didn't get a Rajya Sabha seat so he left, Amrinder Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad were involved in indiscipline... they had internal connections with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government," he said.

Dismissing allegations of anarchy in the party or interference in state affairs by Central leaders, Khuntia said, "I personally feel Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi never interfere. The Congress is run through its organisational process."

The Congress General Secretary hit out at the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for supporting the Waqf Bill 2025 in Parliament and alleged that this move had exposed that the party was not secular.

"It did not come as a surprise that the BJD supported the Bill. The party has shown these double standards on earlier occasions as well," he said.

The former MP dismissed the secular claim made by the BJD and said, "Who said BJD is a secular party? It was on honeymoon with BJP and always supported the bills of BJP."

"As the BJD lost the election many people thought that it would not vote in support of the BJP bill, but that didn't happen because of pressure on the BJD due to different scams like chit fund scams where BJD MLAs were involved," he said.