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After its drubbings in the Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi over the last four months, the Congress is now stepping up to meet the Bihar challenge, where it will contest the upcoming Assembly polls as part of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led Mahagathbandhan or grand alliance.
While the Congress leadership is shifting its focus to Bihar with Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, visiting the state twice in the last few weeks to attend various functions, the party’s organisational structure in the state continues to be in a shambles. The party leadership has not constituted the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC)’s executive committee since 2017. The All India Congress Committee (AICC)’s chief Mallikarjun Kharge appointed Akhilesh Singh as the BPCC president in December 2022.
Several Congress insiders told The Indian Express that the Bihar Congress has not had the key PCC panel for the last eight years. “It (BPCC executive committee) has not been there for at least eight years. I don’t know the reason,” said an AICC leader, who hails from Bihar.
A senior Bihar Congress leader told The Indian Express that he had flagged the PCC committee’s non-existence to the top party leadership, but “got no response”. “I had told several leaders that we should strengthen the party organisation in Bihar if we want to do well in the Assembly elections. But I got no reply. Hopefully, before the elections, it will be constituted by the party,” he said, adding that even district congress committees (DCCs) have not been appointed in some districts in the state.
Former Bihar Congress vice-president Brajesh Pandey, however, said the PCC executive committee would be set up soon. “It will be cleared soon. It hasn’t been there since 2017. The district committees are there,” he said.
The Congress’s performance in multiple Bihar elections has remained dismal over the last several years, with the party relying heavily on its ally RJD, led by Lalu Prasad, for its salience in the state.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won just one seat in Bihar out of nine it contested as part of the Mahagathbandhan. The NDA alliance comprising the BJP and the JD(U), led by Nitish Kumar, and the LJP swept the polls, winning 39 of 40 seats.
In the 2020 elections to the 243-member Bihar Assembly, the Congress won 19 seats of 70 it contested, while its senior ally RJD bagged 75 seats out of 144 it fought, to emerge as the single largest party. With the Mahagathbandhan still edged out by the NDA by 15 seats, the Congress came in for sharp criticism from within the grand alliance for its low strike rate.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won three out of nine seats it contested and the RJD won four out of 23, while their Left ally CPI(ML) Liberation won two out of three seats. The NDA bagged 30 seats.
With Bihar heading for the Assembly elections in October-November, the Congress leadership is now under increasing pressure to have a “respectable” alliance with the RJD and strengthen its state unit while also taking steps to boost the Mahagathbandhan’s prospects.
The Bihar Congress has also been facing rumblings, with some of its leaders staking their claims over its president’s position. The current BPCC chief Akhilesh Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP, belongs to the upper-caste Bhumihar community. Several state Congress leaders have been eyeing his post, pressing the AICC leadership to replace him with a face from OBCs, Dalits or minorities, sources said. Some of them have even targeted his perceived “closeness to Lalu Prasad”.
Before joining the Congress, Singh was with the RJD and had first become an MLA from Arwal on its ticket in 2000. He went on to become a minister in the then Rabri Devi-led government. He also served as a Union minister in the Congress-led UPA government after he won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from East Champaran (Motihari) as an RJD candidate.
A senior Bihar Congress leader said: “Our party will need to sit and bargain for seats with the RJD. There is a lack of trust in Akhilesh Singh because of his proximity to the Lalu Prasad family.”
Another worry for the Congress and its Mahagathbandhan allies has now surfaced in the form of the Jan Suraaj Party(JSP) founded by poll strategist Prashant Kishor. In the by-elections to four Assembly seats last November, when the BJP bagged all four seats, the JSP was perceived to have dented the RJD’s prospects in its two bastions. Building up the JSP in the state, Kishor is said to be focusing on communities such as Dalits and Muslims which form a key base of the Mahagathbandhan’s vote bank.
