New Delhi: A number of prime Congress leaders thought of near the present management have attributed the INDIA bloc’s crushing defeat within the Bihar meeting elections to a “collusion” between the Election Fee and the ruling NDA, resulting in an uneven taking part in subject.

There have been just a few voices within the celebration, although, that had warned the Congress management that the celebration’s marketing campaign in Bihar might be on the unsuitable observe, as a result of a mix of things together with weak candidates and lack of coordination with alliance companion RJD. Lok Sabha MP from Katihar, Tariq Anwar, is amongst these voices.

“This time I used to be afraid from the very starting as any person who doesn’t possess any data of Bihar, doesn’t have any thought, by no means contested any election, was despatched there. I felt that was a unsuitable choice within the very starting. His type of working was not appropriate. While you begin on the unsuitable foot, how do you count on the ending to be?” Anwar mentioned.

Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, Allavaru labored as a marketing consultant with numerous non-public corporations like KPMG and Shaadis.com, earlier than becoming a member of the Congress in 2010. He’s among the many crop of Congress leaders thought of very near Chief of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi and was appointed the celebration’s Bihar in-charge in February, changing Mohan Prakash.

Questioning the timing of Allavaru’s appointment to the publish, Anwar mentioned that anticipating an in-charge to grasp a state as advanced as Bihar inside just a few months was unrealistic. He argued that half of an election’s final result depends upon the selection of candidates—an space the place he believes errors had been made.

“You want candidates who’re standard within the constituency. Total choice was flawed,” he mentioned. Anwar, who’s serving his sixth time period as a Lok Sabha MP, alleged that Allavaru didn’t take state leaders into confidence, averted consultations and discouraged conferences. The Katihar MP added that whereas the Nationwide Democratic Alliance (NDA) additionally confronted its personal inner tensions, it was fast to resolve them.

“Many seniors weren’t consulted. Every time any workplace bearer, employee, or aspirant went to him (Allavaru), they by no means returned happy,” Anwar mentioned.

The Congress, he argued, mustn’t have contested greater than 50 seats, contemplating its weak organisational presence in Bihar and low strike fee within the 2020 meeting elections. In 2020, the celebration had received solely 19 of the 70 seats it contested.

He additionally questioned Bihar Congress president Rajesh Ram’s organisational credentials, noting that he was solely a second-term MLA. “He was not the precise alternative for the publish of president,” Anwar mentioned.

Anwar, who additionally served because the president of the Bihar Congress from 1988-89, mentioned he shared these observations with celebration president Mallikarjun Kharge in a gathering held after Bihar meeting election outcomes had been introduced on 14 November. Kharge would quickly name a gathering of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the celebration’s highest decision-making discussion board, to debate the matter, he added.

The Congress may additionally discover the thought of forming a selected committee to analyse the Bihar outcomes, Anwar mentioned. When it was identified that the studies of such committees are by no means made public or mentioned in celebration boards by the Congress management, Anwar mentioned, “There isn’t a level hiding something.”

Anwar argued that Congress should return to grassroots work as an alternative of counting on top-down fixes. “Our grassroots organisation is weak. There isn’t a sales space administration. Altering a president or observer received’t work,” the Lok Sabha MP mentioned.

Anwar additionally accused the Election Fee of failing to behave neutrally, pointing to points associated to voter deletions beneath the Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) initiative.

Anwar mentioned that the victory of 5 All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidates in Bihar was a mirrored image of the rising affect of fundamentalists within the Muslim group, as a response to the rising “Hindu communalism”. Sections of the group are drifting in the direction of Muslim identity-based events as a result of they view the Congress as ineffective in countering the BJP, he mentioned.

Warning that “communal forces have entered the Muslim group”, he described the AIMIM and the BJP as “two sides of the identical coin”. The Congress, he famous, has traditionally elevated Muslim leaders, naming previous chief ministers in Bihar, Assam, and Rajasthan.

(Edited by Sampurna Panigrahi)

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Additionally learn: From KPMG and Shaadis.com to working Congress affairs in Bihar, who’s Krishna Allavaru

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