Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee (JPCC) has issued a showcause notice to former Godda MP and a senior Muslim veteran of the party Furkan Ansari over his alleged comments against party’s central leaders on Monday and questioning the leadership and its style of functioning after party’s poor performance in the recently concluded Bihar assembly polls.

Congress, which fought on 70 seats as part of grand alliance in Bihar, had managed to win only 14 seats, emerging as the weakest link for RJD’s Tejaswhi Yadav led coalition, making way for BJP-JDU alliance to form government after the high decibel elections. Following the verdict, voices of dissent emerged from Congress camp nationally with many veterans including former union minister Kapil Sibal raising questions over the party leadership.

Speaking to reporters in Bokaro on Monday, Ansari had grossly blamed former AICC president Rahul Gandhi for the loss and advised him to change his advisers. “All his advisers are MBA graduates who can’t understand real political situation on the ground,” he said.

He also took a dig at party’s Jharkhand in-charge RPN Singh for his political acumen stating that if he had been at the helm, he wouldn’t have even considered Singh for the post of a block president. Ansari also came down heavily on Ajoy Kumar, former state Congress president, who rejoined the party in Delhi before the Bihar polls and was tasked to look after the electioneering in Bihar.

Rajesh Thakur, one of JPCC’s co-working president, confirmed the showcause. “On the directions of state party president Rameshwar Oraon, another co-working president Keshav Mahto Kamlesh on served him the showcause notice on Thursday asking to reply within seven days,” said Thakur. Rameshwar is currently in a city hospital recuperating from covid-19.

Ansari’s son, Irfan is currently an MLA from Jamtara and also happens to be one of the five co-working presidents in JPCC. Both father and son had been at loggerheads with the state and central units since 2019 Lok Sabha polls after JPCC then led by Ajoy Kumar gave Godda parliamentary seat, considered as stronghold of the Ansaris, to now defunct JVM-P as part of the grand alliance in Jharkhand. BJP-AJSU-P combined ended up winning from Godda and 11 other seats out of the total 14 parliamentary seats in Jharkhand while JMM-Congress-RJD-JVM-P alliance won on the two. The loss led to exist of Ajoy, who later joined AAP ahead of Delhi assembly polls.