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Bihar Congressmen working at cross-purposes

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

The Bihar Congress is doing itself all the damage it can, at a time its deal with the Rashtriya Janata Dal may have made a big dent in the Bharatiya Janata Party's stronghold in south Bihar. Thirteen seats, out of the state's total of 19 for which elections are to be held, are from south Bihar.

The confusion in the Congress ranks can be seen from the fact that the party's campaign committee met for the first time on Monday, though it was set up about three months ago. It met 72 hours before campaigning for the September 18 poll ends. The fate of the state's 19 candidates will be sealed that day. This will include 13 out of the 14 South Bihar sets that go to the polls on Saturday.

As campaigning reaches the final lap, Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sadanand Singh did the unexpected -- he wrote a formal letter to Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav, requesting him to address public meetings in the constituencies, especially in south Bihar, where his party's candidates are in the fray. Singh has perhaps belatedly realised he might not have done the right thing attacking Laloo Yadav when seat adjustments were being done. Singh had then been upset that Laloo Yadav torpedoed his move to contest the election from Bhagalpur.

Similarly, the Jharkhand Regional Congress Committee -- consisting of a group within the party -- had announced it would go it alone in all the 14 south Bihar seats. However, it succumbed to pressure from the central leadership and agreed to a deal struck with the RJD. When campaigning began, the Congress nominees from south Bihar started sending SOS signals to Laloo Yadav to help see them through.

One Congressmen said, "Since there is no one to woo the voters, Laloo is the safest bet. No doubt, he is still the biggest crowd-puller."

In contrast, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned, even in its bastion of tribal Bihar. Party chief Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre has visited Bokaro, Dhanbad and other areas while Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Dumka, Gaya, Hazaribagh and Ranchi on September 11 and 12. Union Home Minister L K Advani and film star Shatrughan Sinha are also likely to visit the area.

Congress workers are upset that there is no one in south Bihar to cash in on the anti-BJP feelings among the Muslims, Christians, backward castes and Harijans.

The Congress missed the opening the BJP MPs provided by either neglecting their constituencies or by being corrupt. The saffron party has won the last three or four elections relying on either the Ram temple or Vajpayee's cultivated image issues. The party also promised Vananchal, only to dump the matter of a separate state later. Its elected representatives vowed to pump oxygen into the dying industries of the region once known as Ruhr of the country, but did not get around to raising the issue in Parliament.

A former Bihar minister from the Congress, Shakeel-uz-Zaman, told rediff.com that Sadanand Singh was to blame for three seats -- Dumka, Jamshedpur and Ranchi -- being gifted to the BJP without a fight. In a press statement on September 11, former state Congress chief Sarfraz Ahmed and party general secretary Vijay Shankar Mishra lambasted Singh for putting up weak candidates in south Bihar.

But one party official wondered why Sarfraz Ahmed was accusing Singh today when the pair were so close earlier. "Did it have something to do with the denial of a ticket for Ahmed from Koderma or Giridih?" he asked.

While it is not clear how much of a hand Singh had in the party's failures, there is no denying that the party's Jamshedpur candidate, Ghanshyam Mahto, is an octogenarian who has little interest left in politics and who inspires little confidence in the electorate. Against him is the fairly young Abha Mahto of the BJP.

Once considered the Rabri Devi of the Jharkhand region, she is the wife of Shailendra Mahto, one of the accused in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha pay-off case. Shailendra Mahto later switched allegiance to the BJP.

Electioneering also started in utter confusion in Ranchi. Though the central Congress leadership recommended former Union minister Professor K K Tewary for the seat, two other former Union ministers, Subodh Kant Sahay and Roshan Lal Bhatia, wanted in, but their nomination papers were rejected.

The Congress also announced it would contest 16 seats in the state against the 14 it had agreed to fight for in talks with the RJD. The state leaders decided to have a friendly contest with the RJD in Godda and Hazaribagh. The RJD had earlier left these two seats to the Communist Party of India, but when talks failed, it decided to field candidates for these two seats. The Congress claimed since the CPI had refused to contest these two seats, it had more of a right to contest them than the RJD did.

Though, according to a party leader, the AICC asked its candidate from Godda, Furquan Ansari, to withdraw, he is still in the fray. With the Congress, CPI and RJD in the fray, the BJP candidate, Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, should find the sailing smooth in Hazaribagh.

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