Cong meet to draw strategy
The Congress party has called a meeting of its select leaders to draw a strategy for the coming Bihar Assembly elections here on Monday against the backdrop of strained relations between the ruling partners — Janata Dal (U) and the BJP — in the state.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar is under pressure to break the alliance with the BJP after the later tried to weaken the political constituency of the JD(U) by playing the Narendra Modi card in Patna in the last two days.
The BJP’s tactics are helping the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress and weakening its senior partner in the state.
The saffron party, which lost power in Jharkhand recently, is not in a position to improve its strength in Bihar even if it goes alone. Its governance card did not work in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra while the party has no presence in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. But its managers are claiming that the BJP is a national party.
According to a Congress manager, Mr Nitish Kumar would take a political call if the BJP tries to suppress the JD(U).
“Sharad Yadav will have to be soft on the BJP because a break in the alliance would lose his position as the NDA convenor,“ an AICC official said here on Sunday.
In Patna, rebel JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias, Lallan Singh asked Mr Nitish Kumar to sever ties with the BJP if he had any ideology of his own.
“Kumar should sever the ties with the BJP if he really stands for ideology and not for power,” Mr Singh said.
Mr Singh made the remark in the wake of the controversy over publication of an old advertisement showing Mr Kumar and Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi holding hands on an election dais in 2009. Meanwhile, the Congress will be sending over 20 MPs, some legislators and AICC officials as observers in Bihar. They will be allotted districts and zones and asked to stay there till the elections.
“Like Uttar Pradesh, we are going alone in Bihar polls,” an AICC official said.
The Congress is optimistic of making dents in the BJP’s upper caste support base and the JD(U), RJD’s minority constituency this time after realising that no party in the state is in a position to form a government on its own. The Assembly polls are expected either in the last week of October or first week of November this year.
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