Loss and lessons: The Congress story in Bihar

Aditi Tandon

CONGRESS Party’s official reaction to the electoral decimation in Bihar was along expected lines. After a meeting of the top brass led by national president Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by Rahul Gandhi and AICC in charge of Bihar Krishna Allavaru in Delhi on Saturday, the blame for the party’s embarrassing show in the eastern state — 6 wins against 61 seats contested — was put entirely on the Election Commission and the ruling BJP-led NDA.

“Mass voter deletions, duplicate electors and organised cross-state voting by the BJP are responsible for the Bihar results which defy belief. We will produce evidence in a week or two,” Congress general secretary in charge of organisation KC Venugopal said after Kharge led an initial assessment of the second worst Congress show in Bihar’s history, the worst being 4 wins in 2010.

Not everyone agrees with the Congress establishment view though.

Some veterans were so convinced of the organisational rot, lack of discussions on ticket distribution and strategy that they quit the party ahead of November 14 results.

Shakeel Ahmad, a two time Lok Sabha MP from Bihar and a former powerful Congress general secretary who steered Punjab and Haryana when the party was in power in both states, resigned from the primary Congress membership on November 10. He cited “differences with certain individuals” for his decision.

After Bihar results that yielded a landslide for the ruling NDA, Ahmed said the Congress had given tickets to the BJP and RSS sympathisers in the state.

“Rahul Gandhi carries a copy of the Constitution saying he is determined to save the country from the BJP and RSS. But in Bihar, the Congress gave tickets to people with well-established links to the Sangh parivar. Why these double standards? Ahmed asked.

He also described as “lousy” the party’s attribution of loss on vote deletions. “The accusation is that 65 lakh Congress and RJD votes were fraudulently deleted. But throughout my presence in Bihar during the election cycle, I didn’t even see 65 people protesting the alleged deletion of their votes. If the Congress indeed knew so many votes were deleted, why didn’t it mobilize protests in time and do something about it? Ahmed asked.

Before Ahmed, sitting Lok Sabha MP from Bihar’s Katihar and senior Congress Working Committee member Tariq Anwar had also questioned the distribution of tickets under Krishna Allavaru.

Anwar took to Facebook in late October and asked why a candidate who lost 2020 polls by 113 votes was denied a Congress nomination while those who lost by over 28000 votes were fielded.

Congress Party’s Bihar headquarters Sadaqat Ashram in Patna saw frequent protests against Allavaru demanding his replacement with “someone political.”

The familiar refrain that the Congress was losing election after election because Rahul Gandhi had surrounded himself with non-political advisers was also voiced by Mumtaz Patel, the daughter of former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s late political adviser Ahmed Patel.

Analysing the Bihar defeat, Mumtaz said the Congress was ignoring ground workers for people with no ears to the ground.

Real Congress workers are neither being consulted nor acknowledged, she said, warning the party.

Another Congress veteran, former Bihar governor Nikhil Kumar openly blamed flawed ticket distribution for the Congress debacle in the state.

“Clearly we did not select the right candidates,” he said.

Former Lok Sabha speaker and veteran ex MP from Sasaram Meira Kumar was also not seen on Congress campaign trail in the state.

Yet to comment on Bihar results, she is said to be anguished at not being consulted. News is her son was denied a Congress nomination.

Be that as it may, several insiders feel the malaise in Congress runs deep.

“The Congress under Rahul Gandhi has been sidelining powerful ground leaders across states and promoting those with little or no ground connection. Perhaps the long term plan is to fill the party with yes men so that no one is left to speak truth to power,” said a veteran Congress leader on the state of affairs in the party.

Old timers describe the Congress strategy of resting stalwarts for obscure leaders as part of a plan to sustain Nehru-Gandhi dominance of the party.

The plan took root in 1963 when chief minister of the erstwhile Madras state K Kamaraj advised then PM Jawaharlal Nehru to seek resignations of senior ministers and chief ministers and draft them for party work. Under the Kamaraj Plan that followed, powerful union ministers and CMs of Congress ruled states resigned. These included Biju Patnaik, Partap Singh Kairon, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram, Morarji Desai among others.

The cost Congress paid for easing out titans was heavy. Even in Tamil Nadu it lost the 1967 assembly election aiding the emergence of DMK under CN Annadurai. The party could never regain control of Tamil Nadu after that.

An old Congress hand remembers how Congress Party’s electoral decline across states coincided with the fall of powerful state leaders.

The following were sidelined over the years —HN Bahuguna in UP; Jagannath Mishra in Bihar; Sidhartha Shankar Ray and ABA Ghani Khan in West Bengal; JB Patnaik and Biju Patnaik in Orissa.

Popular Congress leader Jagannath Mishra was eased out as Bihar CM in the mid-1980s. The last time the Congress scored in three digits in Bihar assembly elections was in 1985 when it won 196 seats in a house of 243 and a 39.3 per cent vote share.

This year the Congress was down to six seats and 8.71 per cent vote share.