Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge with the party leader Rahul Gandhi seen here with Bihar Congress leaders.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: After having deliberations with Assam and Kerala functionaries, Congress central leadership will meet leaders from poll-bound Bihar on March 12 to finetune strategy for Assembly elections later this year.
One of the keenly watched outcome of the meet would be the message the Congress leadership sending to its Bihar leaders on seat negotiations, especially after facing flak for its dismal strike rate – winning just 19 of 70 seats contested – in 2020 which is blamed for RJD-led coalition’s inability to oust Nitish Kumar-led NDA.
With CPI(ML)L winning 12 seats, there was a discussion that if more seats were contested by the Left party, the RLD-led coalition could have come to power.
However, Congress claims that most of the seats given to contest were not winnable, as either RJD or Congress had not emerged victorious in these constituencies for years. This time, sources said, a section of Congress leaders are demanding that the party should insist on winnable seats.
There has been tension between RJD and Congress with mid-level leaders in the latter mincing no words by claiming that the Lalu-led party was trying to undermine them and it should bargain hard during seat negotiations.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal will hold discussions with the state leaders where they are expected to unequivocally tell state leaders to bury differences and fight unitedly to oust the NDA government.
This will be the first such meeting for Krishna Allavaru, who has been recently appointed the in-charge of the crucial state where he will have to negotiate with alliance leader Lalu Prasad-led JD(U). Allavaru has visited the state twice in the past two weeks after his appointment.
Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh and senior leaders like Tarqi Anwar would attend the meeting. Sources said the plan was to hold the meeting in the first week of March but it was rescheduled keeping in mind the owing to unavailability of some senior leaders.
Also, the party would chalk out a strategy on taking forward its ‘social justice’ plank as well as strengthening the organisation. Rahul has visited Bihar at least twice in recent months where he has highlighted social justice plank, especially with an emphasis on Caste Census.
In the past weeks, Congress leadership has held meetings with leaders from Assam and Kerala, which are going to elections in the first half of next year, and asked them to unitedly prepare for the elections.
For the Congress, defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections have taken the sheen out of its Lok Sabha performance and victories in three states are important for steering the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.