Headlines
No easy options for Congress in Bihar
New Delhi, May 31
Faced with no easy options
in Bihar, where assembly polls are scheduled later this year, a section
of the Congress is in favour of joining a possible alliance between the
JD-U and RJD and another wanting to go it alone.
"There are two
views in the party. One is that we should go for alliance at it would
help in stopping BJP from coming to power, a primary aim of the party.
The other opinion is that the party should contest all 243 seats and
build its cadre. It may not yield dividends in this election but will
benefit the party in the long term," a party leader told IANS,
requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Congress
leaders said a decision on this is likely once there is clarity on the
merger of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
"The
present situation is of wait and watch. We are seeing how JD-U and RJD
finalise their relationship," Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad
told IANS.
Ahmad, a former Bihar Congress president, said that the picture should be clear in about a month.
The
assembly polls are expected in September-October and do not offer easy
options for the Congress as it has not fared well in the state in the
past few elections.
The Bihar poll will be the first after the
Narendra Modi government has completed a year in office and is vital for
the Congress in its efforts at revival. The results are expected to
have a wider political resonance amid efforts by Congress vice president
Rahul Gandhi to cast the National Democratic Alliance government as
"anti-farmer" and "anti-poor".
The JD-U and RJD were among six
parties that had announced their merger into a single entity last month
with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as the president.
However, the unity efforts do not appear to have made much headway since
then. Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav has stated that a
merger was not possible before the Bihar polls.
Amid "technical
problems" related to the merger, feelers from the RJD on seat sharing
appear to have already caused some heartburn in the JD-U.
The
claim of RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad that his party will contest 143
seats had peeved Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who last week asked the
RJD to contest all the 243 seats in the state.
A Congress leader
said that the party's joining hands with the JD-U or the RJD will also
depend on the number of seats it is offered.
"We will join only
if offered an honourable number of seats," the leader told IANS, without
specifying the party's minimum expectations.
Congress sources
said that the JD-U and RJD were expected to contest at least 100 seats
each and only 43 seats would be left to be divided among other possible
constituents of an anti-NDA alliance, including the Congress, the Left
parties and the NCP.
The JD-U had won 115 seats in the last
assembly polls which it had fought in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata
Party. The BJP had won 91 seats as the alliance swept the state,
reducing the RJD to just 22 seats and the Congress to four. However,
differences over the elevation of Narendra Modi in the BJP led to the
JD-U walking out of the alliance in 2013.
Sources said there is
feeling in the RJD that seat-sharing talks should be held on the basis
of performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and not on the basis of
the 2010 assembly polls. The RJD had performed better than the JD-U in
last year's Lok Sabha elections.
A Congress functionary said that
the merger between JD-U and RJD could work to the advantage of the BJP
and it would be better for the the two parties to contest as allies.
"It
would be better if there is no merger and JD-U and RJD contest the
polls as allies. Merger at this stage will not lead to meeting of minds
of workers at the grassroots and may end up helping the NDA," the
functionary told IANS, adding that the chief ministerial candidate
should not be declared.
He said that while Nitish Kumar has a
"good image" among the people, RJD leader and former chief minister Lalu
Prasad appears to have a stronger support base.
Congress sources
said that the party is also not averse to an alliance with the JD-U or
RJD if the two parties do not reach an understanding.
The Congress had won four of the 243 seats it contested in the last elections and nine of the 51 seats it had contested in 2005.