Bihar, state Congress chief Ashok Choudhary. Express Photo by Ravi S. Sahani.
NEARLY THREE weeks after the JD(U)-RJD-Congress grand alliance collapsed in Bihar, state Congress chief Ashok Choudhary appears to be in trouble as senior Congress leaders have approached the high command seeking his removal and putting in place an action plan to revitalise the party.
Sources said the fear of some Congress MLAs switching sides to the JD(U) is still worrying the party.
Sources said former Lok Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh, who joined the Congress from the RJD in 2010, is among the frontrunners for the post of PCC chief in the event of replacement of Choudhary, who many in the party believe was close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. With Kumar parting ways, Choudhary’s critics say his continuance would not help in strengthening the Congress in Bihar.
The Congress high command had last week rushed senior leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jai Prakash Agarwal to Patna to meet the party’s MLAs amid fears that some of them could desert the party. Scindia and Agarwal held a meeting of the Congress legislature party in the presence of Choudhary and CLP leader Sadanand Singh and averted an immediate split in the CLP.
A section of the party is also arguing that a Brahmin leader should be appointed as the state Congress president.
Sources said several leaders broached the topic of appointment of a new PCC chief with the emissaries sent by the high command.
Talking to The Indian Express, Aggarwal, however, said their job was only to conduct a meeting of the CLP which they did. “There was no talk about leadership change. That was not our mandate,” he said. The Congress has 27 MLAs in Bihar.
