PATNA: The Congress’s central leadership is yet to take any decision on the party’s incharge for Bihar Shaktisinh Gohil and state president Madan Mohan Jha, who had sent their resignation letters while taking moral responsibility for the abysmal performance of the party in the assembly polls held recently.
Congress won only 19 of the 70 seats it had contested in the 243-member state assembly.
“The focus has now shifted to Delhi for the party national president’s election. Assembly elections are also due in many states, including West Bengal, next year. So, the central party leadership is likely to put the Bihar matter under wraps for quite sometime,” a senior Congress leader said on Monday.
He also said Gohil and Jha resigned on moral grounds, but every important decision on the assembly elections was taken at the central level. It has been the Congress’s tradition that its leaders tender resignation on moral grounds after the poor performance of the party in elections. The then state president Mehboob Ali Kaiser had also resigned from the post after the 2010 assembly elections in which Congress had won four seats only, he said, preferring anonymity.
“There is nothing new in sending resignations to the party high command,” he asserted.
He, however, admitted strong dissension in the party following the poor performance this year. Gohil was called to Delhi last week but the Bihar elections issue was not discussed.
A section in Congress, including general secretary Tariq Anwar, wants a review of its state assembly poll performance. Sources said chaotic situation was created in Congress during seat allotment and the central leadership had removed the state chief from the poll panel.
After ticket distribution in the first phase, former state chiefs Chandan Bagchi and Anil Sharma had accused Gohil, Jha and party’s campaign committee chairman Akhilesh Singh of favouring ‘incompetent’ candidates.