Patna, April 2: Newly appointed Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Ashok Choudhary today said all doors were open for stitching alliances in the next general elections but the party high command would take the final decision.

Choudhary would formally take charge of his new post at the state party headquarters tomorrow.

“For me, it is premature to comment on the issue of alliance. But Congress is a national party and takes its decision keeping in mind its national interest and prospects. A call has to be taken by the high command. No decision has been taken yet. But all I can say, at the moment, that doors are open. We can contest in alliance and on our own strength also,” Choudhary told The Telegraph.

Choudhary’s statement assumes significance in the backdrop of the Congress losing its alliance partners at the Centre and desperately searching new partners for the 2014 general elections.

“Not only this, the party, which suffered historic drubbing in the 2010 Assembly elections reducing its tally to four from nine in the previous Assembly, has been witnessing a constant decline in its vote share in every bypoll. This is a cause of concern for the party,” said a senior Congress leader, preferring anonymity.

Choudhary, 45, who holds an LLB and a doctorate from Magadh University, was quick to add that nothing much should be read in the praise showered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Bihar’s growth story or Union finance minister P. Chidambaram’s announcement in the budget that the Centre would consider Bihar’s case regarding change in criteria for judging backwardness.

“UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi during the November 2005 Assembly election campaign had promised to the people that the Centre would provide funds for development to states like Bihar irrespective of which party forms the government,” he said, adding that had the NDA government opened its coffers for Bihar, Nitish would not have been clamouring for special status.

Responding to a query on whether or not the Congress would forge an alliance with Nitish’s JD(U) in the next polls, BPCC president said: “We don’t know as to what would happen tomorrow but as of now, one should not read as Congress is offering an olive branch to Nitish Kumar.”

On how he would tackle the issue of intense factionalism, Choudhary said: “I would try to take all sections of the society on board with the blessings of senior party leaders. It will be my foremost priority to develop collective leadership so that a collection decision should be taken for execution with the help of young blood. There is a lack of co-ordination and emotional bonding among party workers which needs to be addressed urgently.”

Choudhary denied any lack of able and efficient leadership in the party. Explaining reasons behind non-emergence of effective state-level leadership in UP and Bihar, the state party chief said during post-Mandal era, the party neglected sections such as minorities, EBC, Dalits with sizeable vote share and so the party could not throw up leaders from these communities and people like Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar filled the place.

The Congress high command took more than a year to anoint the new state party chief as the outgoing president Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser resigned in the wake of party’s historic poll debacle in the 2010 Assembly elections.