Bihar Congress MLAs urge Rahul Gandhi to break alliance with RJD

Bihar MLAs, who met Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi suggested that the party should have no truck with the RJD "at the moment" and work to strengthen it at the grassroots level.

Gandhi had on Wednesday and Thursday met over 20 of the total 27 MLAs of Bihar to elicit their individual views on how the party should tread in future in the state after JD(U) dumped Grand Alliance in July and joined BJP to form the government. The Congress had four ministers in the Grand Alliance government.

The interaction was significant as, at this juncture, some Congress MLAs are gravitating towards JD(U) and some others are against going with RJD now because of "past bad experience" with its chief Lalu Prasad.

Bhagalpur MLA Ajit Sharma told PTI that he requested Gandhi that the party should work alone "at the moment" assessing its strength to forge alliance with other secular forces to defeat BJP in general and state elections.

"Lalu Prasad has always undermined Congress by offering 10-15 seats in Assembly poll and even a smaller number in Parliamentary election," he said.

"But, when we strengthen our position in the state by propagating contributions of Congress to the nation, we can dictate terms in the coalition on the eve of general elections and later state polls," Sharma said.

After assessing its strength around four to five months before the elections, it would be decided whether to go it alone or an alliance could be forged with RJD, Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Left from a position of strength, he said.

"Being a national party, Congress should get lion's share of seats in such an alliance," Sharma said.

Recounting "bad past experience" with Lalu, Sharma said "even in the August 27 RJD rally in Patna, posters of Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi were hard to find".

Amit Kumar, Congress MLA from Riga in Sitamarhi, also spoke against siding with Lalu.

When Gandhi asked him why Nitish Kumar dumped the Grand Alliance, Sharma said he told him "Congress should have put pressure on Lalu Prasad to ask his son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav to quit after graft charge. It could have prevented Nitish Kumar from leaving the coalition".

The Bhagalpur MLA claimed that this was the majority view of Congress MLAs during interaction with Gandhi.

Congress Legislature Party leader Sadanand Singh, who after skipping summons from Gandhi on Wednesday went to Delhi on Thursday and was the last to meet him, was tight lipped about the meeting and whether the party should side with RJD.

"Whatever I had to say I told Rahul Gandhi. These are not for public consumption," Sadanand Singh, ninth term MLA from Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district, told PTI.

Another senior legislator and former minister Vijay Shankar Dubey said "I will be with whatever decision the high command takes as future strategy in Bihar."

Congress MLA from Benipatti in Madhubani, Bhavna Jha, however, spoke in favour of Lalu Prasad.

"I told Rahul Gandhi that Lalu Prasad has always sided with us in times of trouble and hence we should be with him," she said.

The Congress' state chief Ashok Choudhary has been accused by some party leaders of working to split the party in favour of JD(U).

PTI