Bihar poll debacle sparks blame-game between RJD, Congress

Patna: A blame-game is on in Bihar's opposition camp, Mahagathbandhan, which faced a humiliating defeat in the recently held assembly polls that saw the ruling NDA retain power by winning more than 200 seats in the 243-strong House.

Cat was set among the pigeons earlier this week when leaders of the Congress, who were in Delhi to attend a review meeting called by the high command, went public with the view that a section of party leaders was in favour of the party going it alone instead of having a truck with RJD, its old but domineering ally.

Prominent among those who disclosed the "sentiment of most of the 61 candidates", of whom, incidentally, only six tasted victory, was Shakeel Ahmed Khan, the Congress legislative party leader in the outgoing assembly.

"It was a sentiment expressed by most of our candidates that we would have done better had we not allied with the RJD. It is up to the party high command to decide what should be the future strategy," Khan told news outlet after news outlet.

A former JNU students' union president who was with the Left-affiliated SFI before joining Congress, Khan suffered a shocking defeat in Kadwa assembly segment where he was hopeful of a hat-trick.

The seat has been wrested by Dulal Chandra Goswami of JD(U), who had been in political wilderness since losing the Katihar Lok Sabha seat to veteran Congress leader Tariq Anwar in last year's general elections.

Sources in the Congress said that many leaders believed that the ruling NDA's 'jungle raj' narrative, seeking to highlight the lawlessness that allegedly prevailed when the RJD was ruling Bihar, cast a shadow on alliance partners as well.

Moreover, the tie-up with the party helmed by Lalu Prasad, who owes his rise to the 1990s' Mandal churn, is also said to have put off the upper castes, who were known to be supporters of the Congress earlier and have now gravitated towards the BJP.

The RJD, which has been licking its wounds since the elections, in which it ended up with a dismal tally of 25, down from 75 five years earlier, has reacted with indignation.

"If the Congress wants to go it alone, it should do so by all means. It will get to know its worth (aukaat)," said state RJD president Mangani Lal Mandal, whose attention was drawn to the outbursts of the alliance partner.

He pointed out, "Whatever votes the Congress has polled, is courtesy the RJD. It is a spent force in the state. We have been putting up with their unreasonable demands in election after election. In 2020, they insisted on contesting 70 seats and could win only 19. Their strike rate in the recent elections has been woeful. Yet, if they feel they are better off ploughing a lonely furrow, they should do so, by all means."

Notably, seat-sharing arrangements among the alliance partners, too, were far from smooth in the elections with RJD, Congress and the Left ending up in "friendly fights" in about a dozen constituencies.

The BJP-led coalition, which heartily cashed in on the confusion in the opposition camp, seems to be relishing the fresh disarray.

"The Congress and the RJD were fighting during elections and they continue to do so even now. This was bound to happen since their alliance does not have any ideological base nor is there any common commitment to the people's cause. The rift is only going to widen," asserted BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain.

Meanwhile, amid the squabble, the alliance partners seem to have agreed to put up a semblance of unity ahead of the inaugural session of the assembly beginning on Monday.

A meeting of the Mahagathbandhan was convened on Saturday when legislators of all alliance partners unanimously named RJD's Tejashwi Yadav as their leader.

The Congress was represented, at the meeting, by MLC and state unit working president Samir Kumar Singh and two of its MLAs.

According to Congress sources, the remaining four MLAs were in Delhi while the meeting took place in Patna.