While closely watching the simmering tensions between Bihar’s ruling JD(U) and ally BJP over Narendra Modi’s likely presence in the Assembly poll campaigns, the Opposition Congress has lined up an array of Union ministers and MPs to tour the state this month.
Beginning what looks like an early exercise for preparing the Congress campaigns for the Assembly polls due in November, the party’s prominent youth leader and minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday met Congress leaders and workers in Vaishali and Patna and attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. Despite his usual soft-spoken manners, he hit Bihar’s JD(U)-BJP government hard by pointing out its failures to spend the ample welfare funds provided to Bihar by the central government and asserted that the state’s people would display their faith in the Congress by bringing the party to power in the Assembly polls.
Reacting sharply to Mr Kumar’s statement that the Congress had no weight in Bihar and that it was largely a media-propped party here, he said: “Nitish Kumar, being an experienced leader, must not issue such statements. Neither he nor the JD(U) would decide the strengths of the Congress. Bihar’s people will soon show the Congress’ strengths.” On the likelihood of Mr Narendra Modi’s campaign in Bihar, he said: “When the BJP and the JD(U) get finished by fighting (over Modi), Bihar’s people will decide who to vote for.”
Other Union ministers who would visit Bihar in July include coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, who would meet party workers and leaders at Siwan, Gopalganj and Motihari on July 13; minister of state for women and child development Krishna Tirath to visit Madhepura on July 14-15; minister of state for communications and information technology Sachin Pilot to visit Jehanabad on July 16-17; and minister of state for power Bharatsinh Solanki to visit Samastipur, Darbhanga and Chapra on July 21-22.
Congress sources said party chief Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi are likely to visit Bihar in the first week of August.