Taking a swipe at the BJP for failing to hold its alliance partners in the NDA, particularly in the backdrop of ongoing scuffle with its partner JD(U) in Bihar, the Congress on Monday said that the saffron party’s contention of bipolarity of India politics is “just a farce”. Indian politics revolves around the Congress as major party and others are there to play minor roles, it claimed.
The party also claimed that the NDA now existed only on paper. It predicted that BJP’s remaining allies would soon desert it one by one due to its communal agenda. “NDA as an alliance has ceased to exist. It may exist on paper, but on ground level it is almost finished. The rap that Nitish Kumar had given to BJP clearly shows the alliance is over. It is only a matter of time when its remaining allies also leave it and start looking for other alternatives,” AICC spokesperson Manish Tiwari said, while briefing media at party headquarters. “The BJP’s thesis of bipolarity of Indian politics has now gone for a toss leaving the Congress as the only national party with substantive role in the country. The others, including the BJP, would be there only to play minor roles,” Mr Tiwari concluded.
Asked whether Congress is open to an alliance with JD(U) if it splits with BJP, Mr Tiwari said that a senior party leader has already replied on it. AICC general secretary in-charge for Bihar Mukul Wasnik had said that the party would go solo in Bihar Assembly elections.
Mr Tewari also said, “It’s not that Bihar chief minister is completely recluse from the circle of questions. After all, he ran a government with the BJP for close to five years and he will have to answer for that.”
He added that though it appears that there is a fight between BJP and JDU now, it remains to be seen whether the fight is a mock one. “Only time will tell that,” he added.
Mr Tewari said Nitish’s act of returning Rs 5 crore of flood money to Gujarat was not justified “because it did not belong to any individual but was the hard-earned money of the people of Gujarat”.