Patna: Setting all speculations aside, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has finally issued guidelines regarding upcoming elections, and with this the countdown to the Bihar assembly polls has begun.
Political parties have started preparations for the elections. BJP leaders are holding virtual rallies. Janata Dal (United) head and chief minister Nitish Kumar has been announcing various schemes to woo voters. Opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav is visiting flood-affected areas and also raising various issues.
But the Bihar Congress, the oldest party in India and the second largest ally of the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) which has run the government in Bihar for more than a decade and half, is far from active. Bihar Congress leaders are hardly seen visiting flood-affected areas or protesting against various issues plaguing the state.
The grand-old party can at best be seen as a half-hearted participant in assembly polls, so much so that to many political observers it is apparent that the Bihar unit of the Congress is not serious about reviving its old glory.
The visible void in the Congress campaign is odd, given that the party high command had made some determined efforts to ramp up the unit in Bihar two years ago.
Revival plans included overhauling the party at district and block levels along with a strong communications team. There was a plan to set up state-level subcommittees of various departments. It also decided to run a membership drive to popularise the party among youth voters, which constitute 24% of the total votes in the state.
However, two years down the line, none of the party’s plans seems to have taken any shape. Party workers and leaders in Bihar squarely blame the state leadership for the Congress’s poor prospects.
A member of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Working Committee (BPCWC) told The Wire on the condition of anonymity, “The state leadership of the party has shown a remarkable lack of passion for politics. If you ask me what notable work the top leadership of Congress did in Bihar in the last two years, then I have no answers because no work has been done.”
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After the appointment of new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president two years ago, no membership drive was initiated until July this year. The party eventually started a drive in July, 2020, months before assembly polls. The plan itself is a complicated one.
The same leader said, “The foundation of any party is its members, but the process of membership campaign which started from July 1 is very complicated. It takes 15 minutes for each person to get membership because now, new members are registered through their mobiles. For a large population in the state, it is difficult to connect with this process. The leadership should have talked to the high command and made the process flexible, but the state leadership is reluctant to make its point, and we are suffering.”
Backward castes ignored
Madan Mohan Jha was made president of the Bihar Pradesh Congress two years ago. The post had been lying vacant since the resignation of former PCC president Ashok Chaudhary in 2015. Chaudhary joined the JD(U) the same year. It was for the first time since 1992 that the Congress president was from the Brahmin community. It is believed that Congress had appointed a Brahmin president to woo the ‘upper’-caste vote bank, which has been solidly rallying behind the BJP.
Shortly after becoming the chairman, a 23-member working committee was also formed. Upper-caste leaders were given preference in the selection of members to this committee too. Eleven of the 23 members are from upper-caste groups, while three members are from the top layer of the Muslim community. Only four leaders from the backward castes and five from the Scheduled Castes could find a place in this committee.
For the first time in the history of the Bihar Congress, four working presidents were also appointed, but here also upper castes were given a preference. Two of the four working presidents of the party belong to upper castes while one is a Muslim.
Some Congress leaders said that despite the large number of backward caste voters in Bihar, the community could not get fair representation in the party.
A leader belonging to a backward caste group said, “In Bihar, Congress is not willing to get votes from backward castes, which is dangerous for the future of party. Backward caste leaders in the party have been kept away from important responsibilities.”
Given the demography of Bihar, backward caste voters hold the key to power. Other Backward Classes (OBC) constitute roughly 45% to 50% of the vote share in Bihar, whereas upper castes, Muslim and Scheduled Castes account for around 15% each in the state. Given the electoral make up, backward caste votes are the most crucial for any party. The state has been led by a member of the OBC group for the last three decades.
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A lack of a workable strategy has resulted in multiple internal problems within the Bihar unit of the Congress. Recently, BPCWC member Kailash Pal had resigned from all posts, saying that backward caste leaders are not getting proper representation. He also wrote a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, demanding representation on the basis of population of the backward and most backward voters.
In the letter, Pal wrote, “We must give adequate representation to the leaders of backward, most backward communities to fight with BJP in the assembly elections.”
He said that the selection of candidates should be done in a democratic manner.
Another leader who belongs to an OBC group supported Pal and said, “By now the selection of candidates should be in the final stages, but the Bihar Congress leadership is delaying it.”
“Top leadership in the state wants to give an arbitrary tickets at the last minute, so that no one can protest. ”
Party lacking a basic sense of discipline
The problem of the Congress is not merely organisational. The PCC lack a basic sense of discipline.
Take the example of the recent MLC elections. Bihar Pradesh Congress had chosen ex-MP and former Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Tariq Anwar for the MLC election just one day before the last day of nomination. Anwar filed his nomination on June 25, the last day, but his nomination was cancelled as he was not a voter of Bihar. The same day, one of the working presidents of BPCC Sameer Kumar Singh was offered the ticket and he filed his nomination. The whole episode caused huge embarrassment for the party.
Yet another instance reflects a similar callous attitude. On the night of June 25, a message was sent to Congress leaders in Patna including Bihar Congress president Madan Mohan Jha. The message was to gather at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Gandhi Maidan on June 26 at 11 am for a candle march with the national flag in the memory of martyred soldiers. On the morning of June 26, just half an hour before the programme was about to begin, another massage was conveyed for a change in venue. The new venue was five kilometre away from old venue.
Because of the sudden change in venue, very few party leaders and workers could gather, rendering the whole event politically ineffective.
There are enough examples which reflect a similar lack of coordination in the party’s state leadership.
A photograph uploaded on the Bihar Congress Facebook page, without explanation, on August 27, 2020.
Manifold crisis
Problems with the BPCC are not confined to political representation alone; it has been facing a huge crisis on the operational front as well. Its working committee is almost defunct. Its IT cell is yet to gain momentum. Reshuffling at the district level has been delayed for over two years despite the fact that the assembly elections are only months away. Block-level appointments are yet to be done. State-level subcommittees of various departments have not been set up. So far, not a single meeting has been organised with sitting MLAs regarding the assembly polls.
No team has been selected to handle the party’s communication strategy. According to party sources, one or two spokespersons and one media-in-charge have been running the entire communication operations since the appointment of the new PCC chief. They are considered very close to the PCC chief.
The 23-member working committee was constituted two years ago, but has met only four or five times in the last two years. The latest working committee meeting was held in July this year, when Bihar’s party-in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil had come to Bihar to take stock of poll preparations. Before the July meeting, the working committee had met only last year during the Lok Sabha elections. However, the issues discussed in these meetings were not implemented at all, as the state leadership remained carefree.
A member of the working committee told The Wire, “It was decided in the last meeting that district units of the party will be reshuffled as soon as possible, but so far only five district presidents have been replaced. That too was done keeping working committee members in dark.”
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Although one of the issues discussed in the committee meetings was to ramp up the party’s social media campaign, the party has hardly worked on that front. The BJP runs WhatsApp groups at the micro level in the elections, but the IT cell of the Bihar Congress has not yet made the party popular on Facebook. In many districts, appointments to IT cells has been done barely two months ago.
Bihar Congress had no official Facebook page before 2018. A Facebook page was created in April 2018 and now it has 1.5 lakh followers. In contrast, the Bihar BJP created its Facebook page in 2016 and it has more than double the number of followers.
Locked horns with RJD
On top of these, the party leaders’ statements have also inadvertently given political benefits to the NDA.
Soon after the Jharkhand election result last year, Madan Mohan Jha in a clear tone refused to accept Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial face for the Grand Alliance.
He said, “Tejashwi Yadav can be the face of the RJD chief minister, not the Grand Alliance. Such decisions are taken by the high command of the Congress.” For a party, which has performed rather poorly in the last few elections, Jha’s statements were only seen as conflict of interests in the so-called Mahagathbandhan, in which Congress is a junior partner from the very beginning.
Recently Sadanand Singh, senior Congress leader, announced that the Congress will fight on 80 seats in Bihar, muddying the waters further. It had got 41 seats in 2015 assembly election and won on 27 seats.
Singh’s announcement on seats is a clear indication that there is a lack of coordination among Congress’s state leaders and the top brass of the RJD.
Nawal Kishore, the national spokesperson of the RJD, told the The Wire, “We are least bothered about what Congress leader says. Congress’s top leadership has not said anything on seat-sharing. Though we have a couple of meetings with Congress but seat-sharing has not yet been finalised. So, it is difficult to say which party will fight on how many seats.”
When asked about Bihar Congress’s objection on the Mahagathbandhan face, he said that RJD was the larger partner in the Mahagathbandhan, so a RJD leader will be face of the alliance.
“There will be no compromise on that,” he said.
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On the question of Congress leaders’ criticism of the RJD, he said, “They must keep in mind that we have never talked against any of our alliance partners. It is the time we need to make ourselves strong so that we can fight the NDA. Take the example of LJP (Lok Janshakti Party). LJP leaders keep criticising its partner BJP but they are also saying that NDA is intact.”
On the question of seat sharing, Singh told The Wire, “I had analysed Congress’s performance on every seat and had come to the conclusion that we can perform better on at least 80 seats. So I conveyed the same to our leadership.”
He refuted the allegation that unilateral announcements about seats may hamper relations with alliance partners.
“I have every right to tell what I think to my party leaders. I have not talked to Tejashwi Yadav or Laluji (Lalu Prasad Yadav) regarding this.”
Decades–old disease
According to the Bihar Congress leader, the party is not weak only in the state – it is a national phenomena.
Singh said, “Congress is weak in not only Bihar but in all states. But in the 2015 assembly elections we have performed very well. We are ready to work on any plan given by AICC top leadership.”
Political observers believe the Bihar Congress is suffering from a decades-old disease. Speaking to The Wire, political analyst Mahendra Suman said, “The problem of passive politics in the Bihar Congress is not new. If you look at the party functioning closely, then you will find that Bihar Congress’s role in Bihar politics is dismal since the 1990s.”
“Nothing has been done to revive the party in last three decades. It has grossly failed in building strong narrative against the NDA.”
He further said, “The state lobby is strong. They have their own ambitions, so they never allow new blood to run the party.”
Repeated calls were not answered by Madan Mohan Jha. The Wire sent him a WhatsApp massage as well but he didn’t respond.
Bihar Congress working president Ashok Kumar, however, refuted the allegations that the party was taking an inactive approach. He told The Wire, “Owing to COVID-19, we are facing some problems in our field visits and Madan Mohan Jha is a diabetic so he has to take precautions. We are working according to our capacity and people are responding positively. RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav is young so obviously he is more aggressive and active.”
“We are strengthening our IT cell and social media platforms for campaigning. Rahulji (Rahul Gandhi) will be addressing a virtual rally in Bihar on August 31,” he said.
Umesh Kumar Ray is an independent journalist.