PATNA: A week before the massive anti-BJP rally of Opposition parties hosted by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Congress leaders in Bihar were puzzled about whether they should attend the event. A majority of the 27 Congress MLAs, who stood with RJD during the trust motion and voted against the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP government a month ago, were happy that party national president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi were unlikely to attend. State Congress chief Ashok Chaudhary had finalised plans to visit the flood-hit districts in Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region along with four MLAs on August 27, the day of the rally.
But Chaudhary, one of four ministers from the Congress in Bihar’s grand alliance government that collapsed in July, cancelled his Seemanchal visit. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who flew in from Delhi with two party colleagues for Lalu’s rally, told Chaudhary to read out a message from Rahul at the rally.
“That act, both timely and shrewd, put a big brake on the momentum building among Congress MLAs towards a split led by Chaudhary. The high command’s intervention has slowed it down, but it is yet to be killed,” said a vice-president of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC).
Whipsawed by Lalu’s stifling influence on Bihar Congress and the indifference to the state unit’s concerns by Sonia and Rahul, 14 MLAs have reportedly decided to quit the party and join JD(U). Hectic efforts are on to rope in another four MLAs so that the defecting group’s strength reaches two-thirds of the whole to escape the anti-defection law.
Chaudhary, the 49-year-old Mahadalit leader and one-term MLA who became BPCC chief in March 2013, and Congress legislature party leader Sadanand Singh, a party veteran and nine-term MLA, are leading the defection bid despite an Sonia speaking to both and warning them in Delhi on August 31, said sources.
Chaudhary and Singh are known for their rapport with Nitish.
During his 20 months as education and IT minister as part of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress grand alliance government, Chaudhary was one of Nitish’s favourites. Singh, who belongs to Nitish’s Kurmi caste, has been close to him for two decades. After he deserted the grand alliance, both leaders were conspicuous by their perfunctory attack on the JD(U) chief for “betraying Bihar’s mandate”.
Nitish also enjoys the allegiance of 10 Congress MLAs who got tickets to contest the 2015 Assembly polls due to his intervention. In his brief speech during the trust vote in the Assembly, Nitish mentioned how Lalu was unwilling to allot more than 15 seats to Congress to contest and “it was I who had intervened and raised it to 40 seats”.
The nine Congress MLAs who had skipped a meeting in Patna convened by senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on August 11 were among these, said sources. They include Awidur Rehman, Tausif Alam, Mohammad Javed, Abdul Jaleel Mastan, Purnima Yadav, Anil Kumar and Sudarshan Kumar.
“Nitish’s clean image, unlike corruption-soiled Lalu’s, helped Congress win 27 seats in 2015, compared to just nine in 2005 and four in 2010,” said a Congress MLA. “Most MLAs see no future if Congress continues its alliance with RJD, but the high command refuses to see the elephant in the room,” said another MLA.
Even if the dissident MLAs fail to muster 18 (two-thirds) of them to defect, they may resign from Congress as JD(U) is ready to field them in bypolls and ensure their re-election, said sources. At least eight ministerial berths also seem to be waiting for them. Nitish’s Cabinet, which can have a maximum of 37 ministers as per the constitutional provisions, currently has 29.
Nitish’s NDA government stands on a slender majority with just nine more MLAs above the 122 required in Bihar’s 243-member Assembly. Both JD(U) and BJP have little trust in two RLSP MLAs, two from LJP, one from HAM and three independents who support the government. This is why a split in Congress MLAs remains attractive to both sides.