After defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections with a very less margin, a crack in the organizational structure of UPA has been witnessed as a senior leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) calls out the Congress for putting up a half-hearted fight.
“Congress became a shackle for Mahagathbandhan. They had fielded 70 candidates but didn’t hold even 70 public rallies. Rahul Gandhi came for three days, Priyanka [Gandhi Vadra] didn’t come, those who were unfamiliar with Bihar came here. This is not right,” Shivanand Tiwari told news agency ANI.
“Elections were in full swing and Rahul Gandhi was on picnic at Priyanka ji’s place in Shimla. Is party run like that? Allegations can be levelled that manner in which Congress is being run, it’s benefitting BJP,” he said.
Congress had contested on 70 of the 243 seats but taking home only 19. The RJD emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats and the Left posted a surprising score as well.
“I think this is not the case only in Bihar. In other states too Congress lays more emphasis on contesting on the maximum possible number of seats but they fail at winning the maximum possible number of seats. Congress should think about this,” he said.
NDA has won 125 seats in the 243-member state Assembly, three above the halfway mark.
The legislator meeting of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) yesterday elected JDU chief Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister candidate of the alliance and leader will be serving the fourth straight term as CM.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always maintained that Nitish Kumar would retain the post, but the dismal performance of the Janata Dal United (JDU) had put a question on it.
JDU has bagged only 43 seats in the recently concluded Bihar elections and the BJP managed to win 74 seats in the state. The JDU in 2015 assemble polls had won 71 seats and has come down by twenty-eight seats.