Poll alliance only if party is given ‘due respect’, Rahul Gandhi has told Bihar Congress

In a 3-hour meeting with the Bihar Congress, Rahul Gandhi said no need to compromise or feel inferior while forming any alliance for the assembly elections.

File photo | Congress leader Rahul Gandhi | PTI

New Delhi: The Congress party seeks to reap benefits from its consistent attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of the India-China standoff in the upcoming Bihar elections.

Rahul Gandhi held a three-hour virtual interaction with the party’s state leadership Friday when he spoke about the need to “not compromise” while forming alliances for the Bihar elections, scheduled to be held in October-November this year.

“He (Gandhi) said the party has been working very hard for the past few years. And we shouldn’t feel inferior, or feel like we have to make compromises to form an alliance,” a senior state party leader told ThePrint, on the condition of anonymity.

Gandhi has been at the forefront of the Congress party’s attack on the Modi government, particularly over the deaths of Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley last month. Many of the 20 soldiers, including a commanding officer, who were killed on 15 June belonged to the Bihar regiment.

“He said no opposition party is speaking up as consistently for the army and for the country as much as Congress is. Even when Bihar regiment jawans were killed, he (Gandhi) was very vocal,” said the party leader.

Soon after the killings, Gandhi had said, “I want to know who sent these unarmed soldiers in harm’s way and why. Who is responsible.”

Rahul wants a ‘respectful’ alliance

During the 2015 assembly elections, Congress had formed an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). While RJD has 80 seats in the state assembly, the Congress has 26.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) was also part of this alliance, which later went on to form the government. The JD (U), however, broke off to form a government with the BJP instead.

Early last month, Congress state president Madan Mohan Jha had said RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav wasn’t “the face of the alliance yet”.

Gandhi had Friday also asked the state leaders to decide on the alliance by the last week of July. “He was very clear that by the last week of July, all the alliance-related decisions should have been taken, and we need to go in full campaigning mode post that,” the party leader added.

There have been increasing demands from within the Congress to reach out to different parties for an alliance — including the Left parties and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which is currently in alliance with the BJP.

While Gandhi didn’t comment on the specifics of the alliance, he did say that it should be one where the party is given “due respect”.

“There are demands that we should start considering other allies too, to form a maha-gatbandhan of sorts. But he (Gandhi) said that whatever alliance we form should be ‘sammanjanak’ or respectful, where we don’t become inferior,” the leader said.

Congress moots digital fight in Bihar

The BJP has put in place 9,500 IT cell heads and 72,000 WhatsApp groups in order to digitally fight the Bihar assembly elections.

The Congress party had earlier dismissed the possibility of digital campaigning, saying “computer se andolan nahi hota“.

However, seeing that there is no other way to fight the elections now, the party too is gearing up for a digital fight.

“He (Gandhi) has said that he will be ready to address the people of the state whenever we are willing and ready to hold a digital rally. We are planning this some time around the first week of August, when we have a more concrete plan chalked out,” a state party leader said.