Snap ties with RJD, says BPCC

PATNA, Oct 9 (PTI) — The Bihar PCC today called for immediate snapping of ties with the RJD and described the alliance as "a major blunder" that caused "colossal harm" to its poll prospects, the PCC general secretary said today.

"Had we not aligned with the RJD we would have had a vastly better electoral showing.... It was a major political blunder on our part to have an understanding with the RJD," Mr Prem Chandra Mishra, BPCC general secretary told reporters after the PCC Executive Committee meeting here.

The Congress, together with the RJD, faced the brunt of people’s wrath due to the anti-incumbency factor, he said.

The PCC Executive Committee went into the reasons behind the party’s debacle in Bihar and authorised its president, Mr Sadanand Singh and LCP leader Ramashray Prasad Singh to apprise AICC President Sonia Gandhi of the partymen’s sentiments, he said.

He said the Congress’s alliance with the RJD was "only for the Lok Sabha poll and we will like to think on it afresh."

He said he had before the poll informed the party high command about the reservations of Congressmen in Bihar over forging ties with the RJD.

However, the RJD today said it was keen on continuing its alliance with the Congress, the CPI and the CPM in future.

"We will not like any division in secular votes... the RJD favours the continuance of its relations with the Congress and the Left,’’ RJD spokesman Shivanand Tiwari told a press conference here.

Mr Tiwari, however, said if any of the alliance partners, including the Congress, wanted to break the ties, "they are free to do so.’’

He was commenting on the BPCC leader’s statement calling for immediate severing of the Congress’s relations with the ruling RJD in Bihar.

Referring to the falling apart of the electoral agreement between his party and the CPI, Mr Tiwari expressed hope that the CPI leadership would take a lesson from its party’s performance.

Meanwhile, RJD president Laloo Prasad Yadav today hit out at JD (U) leaders Sharad Yadav and Ram Bilas Paswan for "backtracking" on their commitment to social justice and charged them with joining hands with "communal and feudal forces" in their "mad pursuit" to return to Parliament, ignoring the interests of the backward classes and the Dalits.

"Sharad and Paswan have turned communal.... the people have recognised their communal face.... They will have to pay a heavy price today or tomorrow,’’ he told PTI.

He attributed his party’s defeat to "a well-planned conspiracy" by the BJP-JD (U), who, he alleged, used "muscle-power, money and mafia" and "communalised" central forces and election observers.

Mr Yadav said he had "never expected" that the RJD would face electoral reverses like this time. "However, our percentage of votes has increased... RJD candidates secured more votes than what they had got in 1998, but we have lost our valuable seats".

The RJD president charged Mr Sharad Yadav and Mr Paswan with having "blackened" the history of the struggle for social justice.

An introspection on the debacle in the polls had already begun in the RJD and "we will chart-out an effective strategy to overcome the loss in the assembly poll due in March next year," he said.

Disagreeing with the view that the poll outcome was virtually a referendum on the performance of the Rabri Devi Ministry, he said "I have identified the loopholes that caused immense harm to our electoral prospects. We will overcome such shortcomings soon.’’

He said an exercise was being undertaken to rejuvenate the RJD from the panchayat to the state-level.

The RJD, he said, would also launch a mass awakening campaign against the communal and feudal forces who were "out to finish the identity of Bihar.