Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Earlier this week, Congress leaders, who were in Delhi to attend a review meeting called by the high command, came out publicly with the view that a section of party leaders were in favor of fighting the elections alone rather than going with its old but stalwart ally RJD.
The prominent figure who revealed the sentiments of most of the 61 candidates, of whom, incidentally, only six tasted victory, was Shakeel Ahmed Khan, leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the outgoing Assembly.
“Most of our candidates had expressed the sentiment that we would have done better if we had not formed an alliance with the RJD. It is for the party high command to decide what the future strategy should be,” Khan told the news outlet.
Khan, a former JNU Students Union president who was with the Left-affiliated SFI before joining the Congress, suffered a shocking defeat in the Kadwa assembly constituency, where he was expecting a hat-trick.
The seat has been snatched by JD(U)’s Dulal Chandra Goswami, who was in the political jungle after losing the Katihar Lok Sabha seat to veteran Congress leader Tariq Anwar in last year’s general elections.
Congress sources said many leaders believe that the ‘Jungle Raj’ narrative of the ruling NDA, trying to highlight the anarchy that allegedly prevailed when the RJD was ruling Bihar, has cast its shadow on the alliance partners as well.
Moreover, the alliance with Lalu Prasad’s party, which emerged due to the Mandal churning of the 1990s, is also said to have alienated the upper castes, who were earlier considered supporters of the Congress and have now been attracted towards the BJP.
The RJD, which has been licking its wounds since the election in which it finished with a dismal tally of 25, down from 75 five years ago, has reacted with outrage.
State RJD president Mangani Lal Mandal said, “If Congress wants to contest the elections alone, it should do so by all means. It will know its worth.”
He said, “Whatever votes the Congress has got is courtesy of the RJD. It is a spent force in the state. We have been making unreasonable demands of them in election after election. In 2020, they insisted on contesting 70 seats and could win only 19 seats. Their strike rate has been poor in recent elections. Still, if they feel it is better to go alone, then by all means they should do so.” Notably, the seat-sharing arrangement between the alliance partners was also not smooth in the elections, with the RJD, Congress and the Left parties ending up in a “friendly fight” in about a dozen constituencies.
The BJP-led alliance, which took heart in the confusion in the opposition camp, is enjoying fresh disarray.
BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said, “Congress and RJD were fighting during the elections and they are doing so now. This was bound to happen because their alliance has no ideological base and no common commitment towards people’s issues. The rift is only going to widen.”
Meanwhile, amid the discord, the coalition partners appear to have agreed to show a semblance of unity ahead of the inaugural session of the Assembly beginning on Monday.
A meeting of the Grand Alliance was called on Saturday when MLAs of all the alliance partners unanimously nominated RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav as their leader.
The Congress was represented at the meeting by MLC and state unit working president Sameer Kumar Singh and two of its MLAs.
According to Congress sources, the remaining four MLAs were in Delhi while the meeting was held in Patna.