Patna, Nov. 20: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited the party's Bihar headquarters at the historic Sadaquat Ashram in Patna on Friday after a gap of over five years and tried to motivate leaders and workers.
With the Congress making a comeback in Bihar by winning 27 out of the 41 seats it contested as part of the Grand Alliance with the JDU and the RJD, the visit was significant.
After attending Nitish Kumar's swearing-in ceremony, Rahul, flanked by his party's Bihar in-charge C.P. Joshi and state boss Ashok Choudhary, addressed around 200 leaders, including MLAs, MLCs, candidates who lost in the polls, members of the party's state executive committee, presidents of district committees and organisational cells.
"We have performed well and it is a matter of pride," Rahul told his party leaders. "Had we won more seats we would have got more ministers from our party. The Congress ministers sworn-in today should now realise the immense responsibility on them. They should work for the people and party workers of the entire state."
Though he lauded the role of all the three constituents of the Grand Alliance for its the spectacular success in the Bihar Assembly polls, party veterans pointed out that Rahul was the force that cobbled the alliance together after successfully breaking the deadlock between RJD chief Lalu Prasad and chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Lalu was not willing to accept Nitish as the chief minister and there were severe obstacles on the modalities of seat distribution as well, until Rahul bore upon the sparring leaders to accept the inevitability of alliance to stop the BJP juggernaut from steamrolling Bihar. And Rahul had done his homework - he had already consulted Congress leaders from all over the state about the feasibility and prospects of the alliance.
On Friday, "Rahul asserted that the poll results will give a new direction to national politics," said Bihar Congress spokesperson H.K. Verma. "He also pointed out the need of the young legislators elected in the recent Assembly polls to work with the experienced and senior leaders to strengthen as well as expand the party across the state."
Congress sources said Rahul had last visited Sadaqat Ashram on February 1, 2010 "but had stopped coming there after party's dismal performance in the Assembly polls later that year." It had won just four seats out of the total 243 in the state.
Sadaqat Ashram was established by Maulana Mazrul Haq, the renowned freedom fighter from Bihar, to serve as a hub of nationalist education. Mahatma Gandhi inaugurated it in 1921.
The 20-acre ashram started serving as the Bihar Congress headquarters from 1925 and was witness to several meetings by eminent leaders of the freedom movement including first President Dr Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha and others. Jayaprakash Narayan started his historic movement for "Total Revolution" from here during the early 1970s.
