Although the 35 MLA-strong multi-party coalition got the support of five legislators of the AIMIM and one of the BSP, its candidate Amarendra Dhari Singh failed to get re-elected for a second consecutive term, and the defeat is being blamed on the absence of three MLAs of the Congress and one of the RJD.
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An embarrassed Congress, which has only six MLAs in the state assembly, has shot off notices to its absentee MLAs — Manoj Biswas, Surendra Kushwaha and Manohar Prasad — seeking an explanation on why they did not vote in favour of Singh on March 16.
The notice was issued on Wednesday by Kapil Deo Prasad Yadav, the head of the state Congress disciplinary committee.
Biswas, who spoke to reporters after the receipt of the notice, stuck to his guns and said, “I have drafted my reply. I had indulged in no indiscipline. I did not cross-vote. The candidate fielded by the RJD was not to my liking. No diktat was issued by the state leadership to vote in favour of Amarendra Dhari Singh, so I acted as per my conscience. My party was not being treated with respect by the RJD.”
Biswas also claimed that he would have voted in favour of the RJD candidate had the party fielded a Muslim, a community which has a formidable presence in his assembly constituency of Forbesganj.Also Read: Disquiet in Congress after MLAs cross-vote across states in Rajya Sabha polls
“Till the eleventh hour, it was being said that the RJD was going to field Hina Shahab. I wonder what changed,” said Biswas, referring to the widow of gangster-turned-politician Mohd Shahabuddin, a multiple-term former MLA from Siwan, whose son Osama is the MLA from Raghunathpur.
Surendra Kushwaha, who represents Valmiki Nagar assembly constituency, said he had reservations about “voting for a Bhumihar candidate, when my entire political journey has been about OBCs and EBCs and fighting against upper caste dominance”.
CPI(ML) Liberation MLA Sandeep Saurav appeared peeved at “our votes going to waste because of the Congress”, and advised the alliance partner to “look within to identify and stem the rot that seems to have taken deep roots”.
“In state after state, the Congress has exposed its soft underbelly, its utter vulnerability to horse trading. The problem is compounded by the brazenness of the BJP, which is rumoured to use money from the PM Care Fund, cleverly exempted from RTI, for such dirty work,” alleged Saurav.
The former JNU Students’ Union leader was also critical of the absence of Faisal Rehman, the RJD MLA from Dhaka constituency who is away in Delhi to look after his ailing mother, who has undergone a surgery.
Saurav said, “What an unconvincing excuse is this? Did the MLA have to perform the surgery himself? He could have taken time off to catch a flight, cast his vote and return immediately. What action should be taken against such MLAs is an internal matter of the parties concerned. But I urge the alliance partners to realise the need to get our act together.”
Independent MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who supports the Congress, was also critical of the party MLAs’ conduct, even as he lambasted RJD national working president Tejashwi Yadav, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, for “running away after the defeat”.
“I am bemused at the absentee MLAs’ argument that they did not like the Rajya Sabha candidate. Were the legislators liked by all in the party when they were given tickets? And they better not whine about respect. They at least got the Congress ticket. I did not, but still I am supporting the party in its fight against the NDA,” said Yadav, whose wife Ranjit Ranjan is a Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh.
Lashing out at Tejashwi Yadav, who is on a vacation at his in-laws’ place, the MP said, “It is unbecoming of the leader of the opposition to run away to Kolkata after a setback. A serious incident of police firing took place in Muzaffarpur yesterday. He should have been here.”
Meanwhile, JD(U) spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar dared Tejashwi Yadav to take action against the absentee RJD MLA.
“He was barely able to make it to the position of the leader of the opposition. Even the slightest fall in his party’s tally will result in him getting robbed of the cabinet minister rank as LoP,” he said.
As per rules, a party must have a number of MLAs that is more than 10 per cent of the total strength of the assembly to lay claim to the post of the leader of the opposition.
The RJD has 25 MLAs in the 243-strong House. However, the rules also stipulate that the government has discretionary powers to grant the leader of the opposition status even if the party concerned falls short of the aforementioned strength. A case in point is RJD’s Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who was named the LoP in 2010 when the party had only 22 MLAs.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP national president Nitin Nabin got elected to the Rajya Sabha on March 16 when the ruling NDA made a clean sweep, clinching all five seats in the state to which biennial polls were held.
