The humiliating results in the byelection to two Assembly seats in Bihar has made the Congress sit up and rethink its relationship with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) as many leaders in the State feel that the alliance is dragging them down. In both seats, its vote share is far below the victory margins of the winning Janata Dal-United (JD-U). On the other hand, the RJD is ready to forget and forgive, irrespective of the ugly spat.
Bihar State in-charge for Congress, Bhakta Charan Das, told The Hindu that the results and the events preceding it will be analysed before the party takes a call. While admitting that the party’s performance in the bypolls was sub-par, he also palmed off the blame on the RJD. “Lalu Prasad Yadav-ji comments that the Congress and the RJD have reached an understanding, signalling to voters that it’s a friendly match, because of which even the ones who were keen on us decided to desert us,” he said.
He added that the alliance should be based on a “clear cut understanding” between the two sides. “Otherwise, it is meaningless to be together,” he added.
The Congress decided to go solo after the RJD refused to concede Kusheshwarsthan to it. The Congress got only 5,603 votes in Kusheshwarsthan, which is 20 votes less than Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti (Ramvilas). The JD(U) won by more than 12,000 votes in Kusheshwarsthan. In Tarapur, the Congress got only 3,590 votes whereas the victory margin for the JD(U) in Tarapur was 3,852 votes.
The prolonged identification with the RJD has marginalised the Congress in Bihar. Leaders point out that in the 1995 Assembly elections, the only instance when Lalu Prasad Yadav formed a majority government in the State, the Congress had 16% vote share and 29 seats. To serve the interests of individual leaders in the State, the party, instead of occupying the Opposition space, went soft on the RJD. Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) moved into the vacuum left by the Congress. In the 2000 elections, the Congress’ vote share fell to 11%, with the party winning 23 seats. All the 23 Congress MLAs supported Mr. Yadav’s minority government. “The Congress practically subsumed its identity within the RJD. And the slide that started from 1995 has not halted since,” a senior Congress leader said.
While the RJD, the Congress leaders argue, will retain the Muslim and Yadav vote bank in Assembly elections, there is always a strong recoil. “There is a deep-seated fear among the voters that, if the RJD comes to power, the mis-administration of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s regime will return. This leads to an aggressive counter polarisation. Why should we carry this baggage?” a senior Congress leader said.
Congress leaders also point out that in the Lok Sabha elections, the Yadav vote bank has already started deserting the RJD. “We have to think about the longer run, especially the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024,” another Congress leader said.
The RJD does not share this sentiment. What happened in these bypolls, senior RJD leader Manoj K. Jha said, was episodic in nature, with a dispute over the candidate. The RJD, he said, wanted to field a person from a marginalised community but the Congress was not on board with it. “These results categorically tell you that the RJD has got votes from non-traditional quarters. Our vote share has actually gone up. The alliance with the Congress remains robust and State-level leaders should refrain from making denigrating remarks against the RJD, which doesn’t do their [Congress] party a favour,” Mr. Jha said.
RJD leaders are confident that the Congress’ central leadership will prevail over the State leadership. “We will be more than happy if the Congress were to walk out. Look at the results — in both the seats, they got fewer votes than even Chirag Paswan’s party. But the truth is that they will never break ties since the party’s Delhi leadership would not want to lose a trusted ally,” another RJD leader explained.
