Wiped out from Bihar in the recently held Lok Sabha polls during which it failed to win any of the 19 seats it contested, the RJD’S top leadership has blamed BJP’S “money power and propaganda”, following a preliminary assessment of its defeat undertaken by a team led by senior leader Jagdanand Singh.

The RJD was part of the grand alliance in Bihar, which also comprised Congress, HAM(S), RLSP and VIP.

RJD had won four seats each in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Singh’s team comprising Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Alok Mehta have based their findings on studies conducted by a few organisations on poll expenditure, including a report released by Centre for Media Studies, which stated that the BJP alone spent Rs 27,000 crore out of total Rs 60,000 crore spent in the Lok Sabha polls. “During the poll campaign, we had raised the issue of how BJP was using vast resources to influence voters. This allegation has now been substantiated by reports of independent organisations on poll expenditure. This is an alarming trend and reflects how the BJP has targeted poor voters in a planned manner ,” said a senior party leader, not wishing to be quoted.

Had BJP’S nationalism rhetoric been the real reason for the party sweeping the Hindi hinterland, the same should have worked in southern states of Tamil Nadu , Kerala and coastal Odisha, the leader said.

Jagadanand Singh, who lost from Buxar by a margin of 1.19 lakh votes to BJP’S Ashwini Choubey, offered no final comment on the matter. “We are analysing all aspects, including vast resources used by the BJP . We will place the report for discussion before the party soon,” he said.

After the 2019 LS polls results, a few senior RJD leaders, including Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and party MLA Maheshwar Yadav, have blamed lack of coordination in the grand alliance for party’s poor show. A few days back, Yadav had even demanded Tejashwi Yadav’s resignation from the post of Opposition leader in the state Assembly. Poll observers says forming a panel to find reasons for the rout could be a means to deflect blame from Tejashwi Yadav.

BJP’S state vice-president Devesh Kumar trashed the Rjd’scharge. “RJD is merely looking for excuses to cover its shortcomings. People of India, and not people of Bihar alone, have decided to reject dynastic politics and politics of nepotism. The party should seriously introspect on its failure,” he said.

First Published: Jun 09, 2019 13:46 IST