Bihar verdict: Ailing Congress gets booster shot, bags 27 of 41 seats

NEW DELHI: For the first time since its crippling Lok Sabha poll defeat in May 2014, crackers went off at 24 Akbar Road, on Sunday, bringing an early Diwali for Congress leaders and supporters. The party’s tally of 27 seats out of 41 it contested in Bihar — described for close to three decades as the party’s electoral and organisational graveyard — has come as a booster shot for the party looking for a lifeline after the nightmarish general elections of 2014.

From 4 seats in the last asssembly, this was a truly a 'leap forward’ for the party, ironically, in the company of the same Nitsh Kumar-Lalu Prasad, whose Mandal politics decimated the Congress’ Bihar citadel in the late 1980s. Twenty-seven seats gives the Congress the role to play stabiliser to the Nitish government should JD(U)-RJD ties turn volatile.

Though party V-P Rahul Gandhi said whether the party should join the Nitish Cabinet would be decided after consultations, the dominant view among leaders is in favour of sharing power. Congress would try to seek a couple of Rajya Sabha seats too from the Grand Alliance’s kitty. The victory can also silence Rahul Gandhi critics who snipe at him saying he can, "neither attract crowds or votes for his party." Some leaders say Gandhi may attend Kumar’s swearing-in-ceremony in Patna.



Two senior party leaders — Ghulam Nabi Azad and CP Joshi — who acted as the Gandhis-led AICC establishment’s key poinstsmen in Bihar and skillfully executed the seat-sharing talks with allies, selection of party candidates and campaign coordination, kept track of feedbacks from constituencies even while receiving several congratulatory messages from colleagues .

The party leaders were particularly happy about the perfect sheet anchor role it played to the RJD-JD(U) by chipping away a section of BJP upper caste votes and beating back Asaduddin Owaisi’s challenge to its Muslim base in parts of Seemanchal.