Patnaik had put in his papers last week after growing demands that he relinquish the PCC presidency and thus partially own up to the party's bad showing in the recent Lok Sabha polls.

In 1996, Orissa had 16 MPs in the Parliament's Lower House, the second highest tally in the country. But this plummeted to a mere five in the 1998 elections. Since Patnaik had three posts, CWC member, PCC chief and CM, he was the obvious target.

Now, Patnaik is left only with the Chief Minister's post having been sacked as a CWC member too. While, Biswal is likely to retain his post of Deputy CM at least for a while. He had led the first post-poll strike against Patnaik when he organised the resignation ofmany State ministers to pressurise Patnaik into quitting. The resignations were later not accepted but the point was made.

Following this was the K Karunakaran committee report which looked into the reasons for the debacle. The report held the mess in the PCC one of the main causes for the defeat and suggested that Patnaik be divested of his double duties as CM and PCC head. Patnaik took the hint and announced his decision to quit from the PCC presidency. Last Sunday, he put in his papers and seven days later Biswal got the job. Biswal's first test will be the Assembly bye-elections in five constituencies in the coming weeks.

The four-member team lead by Balram Jakhar sent to report on the farmers' suicides in Andhra Pradesh and adjoining areas of Karnataka gave its initial report today. The report blamed the State government for its ``complete failure'' to provide facilities to the farmers which led to the tragedy. ``The agriculture department and its extension services and the local administrationfailed to see the importance of providing pure seeds and pesticides to the farmers. The farmers were forced to purchase adulterated and sub-standard seeds at exorbitant rates," it said.