New Delhi, April 16: Rahul Gandhi’s attempt to enforce unity and create a sense of purpose in the state Congress units has failed to change the ground reality in Bihar.
The appointment of a Dalit, Ashok Choudhary, as the new Pradesh Congress Committee chief in the state has vertically split the state unit on caste lines. The development is linked to the inability of senior Congress leaders in the state to work in harmony and think beyond caste lines, the two main objectives of the new party vice-president.
Almost all upper caste Congress leaders from Bihar are opposed to Choudhary and expect to oust him sooner than later through a sustained campaign in Delhi. A meticulously prepared dossier containing details of two cases against him is being distributed in Delhi for the past few days. While one case pertains to Choudhary’s alleged role in the murder of Congress MP Rajo Singh, the other involves a bank fraud in which his wife’s name is mentioned.
The main grudge against Choudhary is that his leadership would anger the upper castes (Brahmins and Bhumihars) willing to return to the Congress in the wake of turmoil in the BJP-JD(U) relationship. A section of leaders lamented that Rahul’s understanding of caste politics was very poor and would attract disastrous consequences.
They pointed out that none of the five top posts from Bihar had gone to the upper castes. Meira Kumar is the Lok Sabha Speaker, Shakeel Ahmad is the AICC general secretary, Sadanand Singh is the CLP leader, Dr Jyoti is the Council leader and Chowdhary is the PCC chief.
Another group of leaders confronted this perception, arguing that they were ignoring the larger truth that the upper castes got their chances for decades and the party decayed under their leadership.
The party’s state unit witnessed the worst kind of factionalism and internal sabotage when two forward caste leaders, Ram Jatan Sinha and Anil Sharma, headed the PCC. The Congress won only nine seats with 6 per cent votes in the 2005 Assembly elections, followed by four seats with 8.37 per cent votes in 2010.
A young leader said: “We had upper caste and Muslim leadership in the recent past. The situation is so bad that it is difficult to find even a couple of persons for booth committees in several districts. If we continue to fight among ourselves and play backward-forward, we will reach the zero level soon.”
Rahul is expected to meet the outgoing and the new PCC presidents within the next two days to discuss the future roadmap.
