Jharkhand developments do not augur well for Rahul’s youthful Congress in Bihar

13/09/2010

Patna,(Bihar Election Watch): There is no dearth of political pundits expecting a UP type miracle from Rahul Gandhi in Bihar. But what they miss is that Bihar has more in common with Jharkhand, which was till November 15, 2000, a part of this state. For example, UP has double the upper caste population than Bihar and the number of Schedule Castes is one and a half time more. Whereas both In Jharkhand and Bihar the upper castes do not form a big percentage.

Like in parliamentary election of May 2009 the Congress could not gain much in the assembly election of December last in Jharkhand. It manange to win only 14 seats while its partner the Jharkhand Vikas Party 11 in the House of 81.

And just on the eve of the assembly election in Bihar Congress failed miserably to foil any BJP-JMM government from coming to power in Ranchi.

Congress is being rated highly in the media in Bihar though the ground reality suggests that it is still the party with limited support base. True its area of influence has increased but the party has to rely on men like Pappu Yadav, Anand Mohan Singh, Sadhu Yadav, Subhash Yadav and now most likely Nagmani and even Ejaz-ul-Haque, one time close aide of Mohammad Shahabuddin of Siwan.

Though Rahul in Saharsa and Samastipur on September 4 called on the youths to come up and join politics those who have joined the party in the recent months are either rejected politicians or the one who are serving jail term on the charge of heinous crimes. All the above-mentioned leaders are more or less spent forces yet the Congress has thrown open its door wide open for them.

Besides, the party has no leader of the status of Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar. Unlike in UP, here the party failed in the Lok Sabha election last year too winning just two seats.
However, the rank and file of the Congress are still very much hopeful of the performance of the party in the state. They owe this huge turnout of the people to Rahul Gandhi’s public meetings to the chaos, corruption and anarchy in the state, especially in the Kosi belt, where thousands of people are still homeless after the devastating flood of August 2008.

Party insiders are of the view that hung assembly would be a huge success for the Congress, which is looking forward to woo a large number of Bhumihar and even Brahmin votes too. It is trying to win over Muslims too, but much depends on the situation emerging after September 24 court verdict on Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

Congress is concentrating on young candidates in the coming assembly election. Therefore, a sizeable section of those who are likely to contest are members of the Youth Congress. Even if they do not win they would be an asset for future. This is the strategy of the party.

I am not much of Congress and Gandhi family fan. However, I do think that Rahul Gandhi has charisma that comes with birth in Gandhi family. And why shouldn't it, when you know you will rule this country one day by the time you start calling ma and pa. I see he is doing some great groundwork before being elevated to the PMs chair and that ground work will ensure that he will have a huge mass support when he becomes the PM. But, so far I have not seen or heard any thing visionary out of his mouth. He scores zero when it comes to show some real vision in terms of country's development. I hope am proven wrong.