Sticking to its plan to go alone in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections scheduled later this year, the Congress on Wednesday hinted that the party would prefer wasting its 10 votes in Rajya Sabha elections than supporting either a RJD nominee or LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
Claiming that any truck with either Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav or Mr Paswan would cost the Congress dearly in the forthcoming Assembly elections, a senior party leader from Bihar said, “We have apprised the Congress president of our views. We informed her that any proximity either close or remote with either of the two parties would give a wrong signal and provide ammunition to the ruling NDA in the state to browbeat us by publicising that we are having just a mock war to fool people.” The party in the state is looking up to revive itself and become a force to reckon with. Glimpses of that were visible during last Assembly byelections in which the Congress bagged two out of 17 seats, which matched the ruling BJP’s numbers. At that time, RJD representatives were not in the Union Cabinet and the Congress fought the elections on it own.
“There are votes which are essentially opposed to RJD-LJP combine in the state and currently held on by the BJP as an alternative. Those votes are essentially secular and willing to shift to the Congress. Any move to give the sense that the Congress and RDD-LJP combine are on the same page would prove fatal for the party,” the leader said.