The only senior party leader to campaign in Bihar was Rahul Gandhi (Archive)
New Delhi:
The poor performance of Congress in the Bihar assembly elections has triggered another wave of dissent within the big party, which barely managed to hold together after a storm of protests four months ago that threatened to tear it apart.
High-level leaders who are part of the dissident group said: “It is considered that the performance of Congress is what dragged the Grand Alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal of Tejashwi Yadav and the left-wing parties to the ground.”
Congress won only 19 of the 70 seats it contested, a stark contrast to the 75 of the 144 seats won by the RJD. Even the outcast CPI-ML, which was part of the alliance, won 12 of the 19 seats it contested, bringing Congress to the bottom of the list in terms of strike rate.
Officially, the leaders responsible for managing the Bihar elections attributed it to “poor ticket distribution, the AIMIM factor and the polarization of the votes in the third and final phase of voting.”
Others noted that Congress received 13 seats that it never contested and that it performed much better in the first two phases of the vote, before the polarization began. “Congress also contested 26 seats that have never been won by any partner in the alliance in the past three decades,” they said.
Dissidents, however, blame poor performance on poor management.
“We were kept out of the campaign and the reports we get from our leaders in Bihar is that a lot of incompetent personnel were sent from New Delhi to manage matters, bypassing the leaders in the Bihar Congress,” he said a section of the dissenters. .
Another group of dissidents argue that Bihar’s election should not be viewed in isolation and is part of the pattern of elections in other states, including by-elections in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka.
The only party leader to campaign in Bihar was Rahul Gandhi, and his stance was entirely based on personal attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which many leaders said backfired in previous elections.
This was different from Tejashwi Yadav, who had run an issue-based campaign, focusing on jobs and corruption, which, while not leading the alliance to victory, had paid off to some extent. His party has emerged again as the largest party in the elections, although it lost five seats compared to 2015.
All of this has led to an internal questioning about Mr. Gandhi’s competence. In private, a section of leaders has attacked the Gandhi brothers for not leading from the front. They have also repeatedly stressed the need for a full-term president who can build a new narrative and help the party resurrect.
Currently the top position is held by Sonia Gandhi who has made it clear that it was a precautionary measure. But even after the August rebellion of more than 20 senior party leaders and their guarantee that a new leader will be selected, the process is slow.
The process for internal elections has begun and, with the elections planned, both dissidents and loyalists within Congress have realized that something drastic must be done if the party is to remain relevant and take on the NDA led by the first. Minister Modi.
Letters challenging the leadership of the Gandhi family began to pour in after the party months after losing power in Madhya Pradesh, almost saw a response from the situation in Rajasthan, and only narrowly retained its rule.
Before a meeting of the party’s Working Committee in August, a section of leaders, which included party veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma, had pointed out the “uncertainty” and “drift” in the party and asked for “honest introspection.”
The letter called for a “full-time” “effective leadership” who will be “visible” and “active” in the field, reflecting criticism from a section on the leadership of the Gandhi family.
A second letter came after nine congressional leaders were ousted in Uttar Pradesh.
Congressional top sources said the results from Bihar will further delay Rahul Gandhi’s long-awaited return as party chief. Gandhi, who resigned from the top post after the party’s disastrous performance in last year’s Lok Sabha elections, has been adamant about ruling out a comeback.
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