In the first open attack on Congress for its poor performance in Bihar assembly polls, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) National Vice President Shivanand Tiwary targeted Rahul Gandhi for vacationing in Shimla in the middle of the battle on Sunday. electoral, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a dozen demonstrations.
Tiwary, an outspoken leader, also criticized Congress as “an unreliable player.”
Rahul Gandhi addressed just eight rallies throughout the three-week election campaign for the three-phase elections, which ended on November 7.
Congress won only 19 seats out of the 70 it contested. It has caused heartburn in the RJD-led Grand Alliance (GA) which the coalition lost to the ruling NDA by a small margin to reach the majority figure of 122 MLA due to the low strike rate of the big party in obtaining seats.
“Rahul Gandhi is much younger than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But Modi addressed more demonstrations than Gandhi. Congress took up to 70 seats in shared seats, but did not hold 70 demonstrations. The party’s effort in the polls to equal the number of seats it contested was totally lacking in Bihar this time. Gandhi was having a picnic at his sister’s home in Shimla when the elections were underway. Is this how a party is organized? The non-serious approach of Congress in leading the party only leaves room for accusations that the national party is only helping the BJP, ”he said.
He also took photos with the leader of Congress for the poor spectacle of the party in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2017 when Gandhi, in alliance with the head of the Samajwadi Party (SP), Akhilesh Yadav, managed to win 54 seats out of 403 seats. .
The senior leader maintained that the senior leadership in Congress was not adapting to the changes or even listening to senior leaders for an organizational review, highlighting how 23 senior party leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tiwari, had him written to party president Sonia Gandhi changes. “But what happened? Nothing. There were no changes in the way Congress works,” he said.
Tiwary, who is a former Rajya Sabha MP and former minister, was also relentless with his attack on Priyanka Gandhi and said his focus on Uttar Pradesh as AICC secretary general has not been enough. “In the recent four-seat by-election in the UP, candidates for Congress lost their deposits in four seats of the seven seats where the elections were held. So how has Priyanka been able to shore up the party’s declining electoral fortune in UP? I ask.
Despite his scathing criticisms, Tiwary asserted that his statements against Congress should not be perceived only as those of a national vice president of the RJD, but also as those of a senior state politician who has spent 50 years in politics for social justice. , democratic values and civil rights.
“We want Congress to get stronger. Today, democracy is in jeopardy, especially because of the way civil liberties and democratic voices are restricted in the country under BJP rule. But I believe that Congress is not making any concerted effort in this direction. As a party, Congress must learn from the BJP to be accommodating to allies, such as re-electing Prime Minister Nitish Kumar to the highest office despite JD (U) only winning 43 seats and bringing smaller allies on board as VIPs. and HAM, ”he said. .
He also said that even the leaders of the Bihar Congress are now acknowledging that there were big mistakes in the selection of candidates. “Congress leaders organized dharna today. A section of party leaders now admit that it was a wrong selection and a flawed campaign that led to the party’s bad show, ”Tiwary said.
The RJD had so far been silenced by blaming Congress for the GA’s failure to get to the halfway point and opposition leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav said all the allies have worked collectively. But the CPI-ML (liberation), a major left-wing party in the state that won 12 seats as a partner of GA this time around, has already put Congress in the dock for the alliance debacle.
“Congress had a low strike rate and it seems that the party did not elect its candidates and conducted the electoral campaign as desired. Congress must review its deficiencies, ”CPI ML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattarcharya said recently.
Signs of internal disputes in the GA are emerging and relations between RJD and Congress could now come under increasing strain.
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