NEW DELHI, 6 September 2005 — Congress yesterday clarified that it will not strike an alliance with Ramvilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) for next month’s Bihar elections. The party said that it would in fact field candidates against LJP candidates.
The main fight in Bihar is expected to be between the National Democratic Alliance of the Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the United Progressive Alliance of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M).
The Congress leader in charge of Bihar, Digvijay Singh, said Congress would ensure that the party took on each and every one of Paswan’s candidates.
“Paswan is either with us or against us. If he is against us, we will have our candidates fighting him,” said Digvijay Singh.
Earlier two prominent left parties — the CPI and the CPI-ML (Liberation) which had refused to join the front led by the RJD — appealed to Paswan to end his political hedging and join hands with them to strengthen a third front.
The Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati also announced yesterday that it would not have any understanding with any party for the assembly elections in the state. Mayawati claimed at a news conference here that the support base of her party was expanding in Bihar and a rally held recently in Patna was the proof. The BSP would attempt to field its candidates in all seats in the state, she said.
The CPI, which is keen on forming a third front for the upcoming elections with the LJP, CPI (ML) and Samajwadi Party, has convened a meeting of its national executive on Sept. 17 and 18 to finalize its strategy.
The party has criticized Congress for “handing over” Jharkhand to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and was trying to do the same in Bihar by splitting secular votes.
Asserting that it would contest with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, CPI (ML) and Samajwadi Party and not with the RJD, party General Secretary A.B. Bardhan has said the CPI tried to align with Lalu Prasad’s party earlier “but RJD’s treatment of its partners had not always been fair.”
Acknowledging that the RJD was a secular party, he said “there seems to be a lot of difficulty about the CPI not going with the RJD. We had tried a number of times, but it did not seem worthwhile going on talking to them.”
The CPI (M) and the CPI have been on different wavelengths on the issue of alliances for Bihar elections with the Marxists rooting for a secular formation around RJD and Congress. The CPI (M) central committee, at its three-day meeting that concluded Sunday, felt the RJD and Congress were the major political forces which should form the basis for any secular alliance to defeat the BJP-led NDA.
