In what could come as a blow to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s desperate efforts for rapprochement with the Congress, a high-level committee of the ruling party at the Centre is set to recommend a go-it-alone policy in the ensuing Assembly elections in Jharkhand.
The Screening Committee for Jharkhand, which was sent to the state recently by the party high command, was also learnt to be against the removal of state PCC chief Pradeep Balmuchu ahead of the election, notwithstanding a concerted campaign against him by a section of senior party leaders who accuse him of being responsible for the party’s dismal show in the state in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Senior Congress leaders, including Mukul Wasnik, Harikesh Bahadur, Shakeel Ahmed and Abdul Mannan, who had recently visited Jharkhand, were learnt to have “verbally” apprised Congress president Sonia Gandhi of their assessment of the political situation in the state.
Committee members said that their feedback from party workers and people in the state ruled out any alliance.
The committee’s report could put paid to all efforts by the RJD supremo to build bridges with the Congress ahead of Assembly elections in Jharkhand, which is likely to go to polls in December. Yadav had recently called on the Congress president requesting her yet again to forge a secular alliance in the ensuing Jharkhand Assembly elections.
The Screening Committee members said there was a “strong feeling” in the state Congress that any alliance with Shibu Soren would mean “owning up the misdeeds and anti-development image” of the JMM when it was in power.
As for the removal of the state Congress president, committee members conceded that Balmuchu was “hugely unpopular” within the party, but maintained that replacing him barely two months before the election could only “worsen infighting” in the party.