PATNA: It is now around a week since the Congress top leadership had made its intention clear to find a new party chief for Bihar by summoning the incumbent state president Madan Mohan Jha to Delhi and asking him to put in his papers.
But the Congress high command is apparently finding it not easy to find a replacement for the outgoing state party president Jha. Jha's present tenure had completed six months ago but the party high command avoided appointing a new chief for the state Congress.
Bihar Congress was primarily dominated by the party's old guard but the entry of firebrand former JNUSU president and CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar into the grand old party last September worked like a breath of fresh air for the state Congress.
Now, it is widely speculated that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wants him as the next party chief in Bihar. But if the party high command really appoints him, Congress old time ally, RJD will take the decision with a pinch of salt, as the party sees him as a formidable competitor to the RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav Kanhaiya, a strong secular face, has also emerged a popular leader, particularly among youths due to his good oratorical skill.
In such a situation, Congress leadership can appoint Kanhaiya as the state party president to woo upper castes, particularly Bhumihars to its fold. Senior Congress leader and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda during his personal visit to Bihar said that the state Congress would have a new chief soon, as the phase of elections and by-elections was over.
He said that names of the party presidents at the block level would also be decided soon. Meanwhile, party sources said that the party high command would give weightage to a leader's popularity and also his ability to raise funds for meeting monthly expenses worth nearly Rs 6 lakh.
While AICC provides Rs 2.5 lakh to the state party unit every month, the state party president has to arrange around Rs 4 lakh, sources added. Besides that of Kanhaiya, names of former union minister and Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Singh, former MP Ranjeet Ranjan, party MLAs Vijay Shankar Dubey, Prem Chandra Mishra and Rajesh Ram are doing the rounds.
Sources said there was a remote possibility that an election would be held for appointing a new Bihar Congress president and most probably party high command would handpick a leader for the post. “The new chief will be either from the Dalit community or from the Minority community,” another senior leader said.