The struggling Congress in Bihar looks headed for a major split a day after the resignation of influential leader Mahachandra Prasad Singh, who claimed on Sunday that a big group of leaders and “about 90 per cent party workers” supported his decision for defection.
“A sizeable group of Congress leaders and about 90 per cent party workers in Bihar’s 38 districts have supported my move. They are ready to go to whichever party I join,” said Mr Singh, a senior member of the Bihar Legislative Council, who resigned on Saturday citing utter discomfort at the Congress-led UPA government’s continual disregard to demands for granting special category state status to Bihar and the Congress central leadership’s neglect of its Bihar unit.
Adding a ring of reality to speculations that he was set to join the ruling JD(U), Mr Singh said: “Until now, there is every possibility of my joining the JD(U). Maybe there will be some talk with Nitish Kumar in between. Now it seems certain that I am joining the JD(U) tomorrow”. The defection of Mr Singh, a towering figure in the Congress in Bihar for about 30 years, could be setbacks to the national party’s efforts to revive itself in the state.
Ironically, Mr Singh’s announcement of resignation came on a day when the Youth Congress began its crucial training session of members, christened “Yuva Drishti 2011” in Patna. Bihar Congress president M.A. Kaiser said Singh quit for “his own selfish political gains” in the upcoming legislative council polls and that his departure would not affect the Congress.
The politically plausible reasons cited by Mr Singh, previously a strident critic of chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar, for quitting the Congress has already won him sympathies within Bihar’s main ruling party. But it was unclear which leaders could be leaving the Congress along with Mr Singh, who represents the Saran graduate constituency in the Bihar upper House.
Known for his acute political strategies and often even for promoting factions within the Congress, Mr Singh had headed the 18-member state election committee of the Congress that selected candidates for the 2010 Assembly polls. He had himself contested the Assembly polls and lost like in three earlier polls.