Congress manages to avoid split in its legislature party
Patna,(BiharTimes): Congress in Bihar is facing a Gujarat-like situation as efforts are on to engineer a split in the 27-member legislature party.
Senior party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was rushed to Patna, held a meeting with office bearers and legislators on Friday. Twnety-four out of 27 MLAs took party in the meeting.
Reports suggest that four of the 27 MLAs, who were ministers in the previous Grand Alliance government, are among those who may cross over if they are offered better ‘opportunities’. After all there are half a dozen vacancies in the cabinet and posts of new chairpersons of various Boards and Commissions are to be filled.
After a day-long fire-fighting Scindia returned a bit assured that the crisis has temporarily been blown over. But nothing can be ruled out in future.
Though all out efforts are on by BJP-JD(U) alliance to poach MLAs from the Congress yet the move failed to yield result as 18 of 27 legislators, that is two-thirds required to formalise a split, were not eager to cross over.
In case of Gujarat a dozen or so Congress MLAs quit and lost their seats as the Assembly election is due at the end of the year. In Bihar no MLA would like to lose his/her seat at this point of time when election is 39 months away.
The problem with the Congress is that while the ministers in the outgoing government, having enjoyed the taste of power, were eager to join hands with Nitish Kumar, many others are not keen.
Several office-bearers were extremely critical of these former ministers, especiall education minister Ashok Chaudhary, who is also the president of the state Congress. He was even accused of being a sycophant of Nitish, who did nothing for the Congress party or the people as such.
