Bickerings bane for Bihar Congress ahead of Assembly polls

With Assembly elections in Bihar not far away, bickering in the Congress state unit have become a bane for the party when the ruling JD(U)-BJP alliance is getting its act together.
   
"Nothing is going right for the party in the state," Congress leaders say, referring to the bitter acrimony between PCC president Anil Sharma and AICC in-charge of the state Jagdish Tytler.
   
Both Sharma and Tytler, who were considered close not long ago, have fallen apart and their followers are saying that party chief Sonia Gandhi would take a decision soon in the matter.

Sources maintained that the party has lost the goodwill generated after the visit of Rahul Gandhi in the state early this year due to internal squabbles and open infighting which have plagued the party in the last few months.
   
Party leaders from Bihar, who are camping here to lobby for a leadership change in the state, said the bitterness between Tytler and Sharma has reached such a low that one directs the workers not to attend the meeting of the other and vice versa.

"The morale of the workers is low. They do not know whom to follow and what to do. The party workers are looking at the high command for a change to make the organisation fighting fit for the assembly elections," a party leader said.

Tytler dismissed such speculation saying the party was gaining in strength in the state and it was reflected in its rallies that have been drawing huge crowd.

However, a section of the Congressmen believe that leadership change in the state was the only way out of the present mess to revive the fortunes of the party in the state.

Congress will go it alone in the Assembly elections, to be held in October-November, like it did in the May 2009 Lok Sabha polls in which it won two seats but was instrumental in the poor showing of RJD whose tally dropped from 27 to four.

The Lok Sabha polls turned out to be a Waterloo for LJP with the party drawing a blank and its chief Ram Vilas Paswan himself losing from his pocket-borough of Hajipur.

In the 234-member Assembly, Congress has only eight members at present. But loyal party workers maintain that the people of the state want a change if given an alternative and Congress could fill this vacuum.
   
The party has been in the woods in the state for the last 20 years though it has shared power for sometime with RJD in its 15-year rule.

For the Assembly elections, three political formations have already taken shape. While the JD(U) will contest along with the BJP, Lalu Prasad's RJD will combine with the LJP.

Congress will be the third contestant.