New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge are planning to aggressively focus on Bihar and will review the poll preparations in the state along with senior leaders in the first week of March.
The meeting comes days after the newly appointed All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge Krishna Allavaru visited the state and held meetings with local leaders to get a feel of the ground situation. While the new in charge is focusing on boosting the party organisation across the state initially, he is also flagging that the party would contest the coming elections with a greater focus on the block and panchayat level instead of being driven from New Delhi.
In this light, the review meeting is likely to focus on three issues - how well the state unit is able to carry forward Rahul Gandhi's narrative of social justice, what changes are to be done in the organisation urgently and what would be the nature of its alliance with the regional parties.
On his part, Rahul has visited Bihar twice over the past months to flag his focus on social justice but it would be crucial to evaluate if the narrative is getting widely publicised by the state unit. For the Congress managers, the coming Assembly elections, likely to be held in October-November 2025, are crucial as a defeat of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will affect the central politics as well. However, the ground reality is that while the NDA has started workers' level conventions, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are doing such programs separately.
Further, what will also be crucial for the Congress is the number of seats it will get in the INDIA bloc and how to regroup the party at the same time. The Congress had contested 70 of 243 assembly seats in 2020 but could win only 19. The grand old party is again demanding the same number of seats to assert itself in front of ally RJD saying that ignoring the national party could hurt the opposition collectively.
"The number of seats is not the focus. The initial focus in strengthening the organisation. The new in charge has met the state leaders and covered a few districts to meet the local workers. I am also travelling across regions to review the local teams," AICC secretary-in-charge Shahnawaz Alam told ETV Bharat.
"A meeting of the AICC is likely next week to review organisational status. The coming elections are important as a loss for the NDA will also impact national politics. The Congress is certainly going to be very aggressive in Bihar this time," he said.
According to party insiders, if the high command is keen to change the state leadership and appoint new office bearers, it should be done as early as possible to save on the limited time at hand. In naming a new state unit chief the caste equations will be key, they said, adding that this would also be required while distributing tickets for the elections.
Krishna Allavaru has stressed that the winnability factor will be the most important factor in ticket distribution. "He has asked the workers to focus on their respective areas instead of rushing to Delhi for favours," said Alam.
