Farmers Movement Archive

RJD fumes as Congress forms committee to select candidate

PATNA: Moving one step ahead of its alliance partner RJD, the Congress on Thursday announced the names of its observers for byelection to Kusheshwar Asthan assembly constituency in Darbhanga. The five-member committee of Congress observers will interact with local party members and then take the call on its candidate and poll strategy. The committee was formulated by Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Madan Mohan Jha as per the instruction of state Congress incharge Bhakta Charan Das. It is being headed research cell head of the party Anand Madhab. Other members of the committee are Kapil Dev Prasda Yadav, Kaisar Khan, I P Gupta and Ajay Paswan. The development assumes significance amid tussle between alliance partners RJD and Congress over fielding candidate at Kusheshwar Asthan. While senior RJD leaders have claimed they will not give this seat to Congress, the Grand Old Party is in no mood to relent. The Congress is following the seat-sharing formula reached in the 2020 assembly polls when it had got the Kusheshwar Asthan seat. “Our candidate had lost by a small margin in 2020. We have already done the groundwork for the seat,” Madhab said, adding he will leave for Darbhanga with his team on Friday. RJD state spokesperson Chitran Gagan said the party would fielding its candidate at Kusheshwar Asthan this time and Lalu Prasad will take a final call on it. Meanwhile, the Congress on Thursday protested against the NDA government at the Centre as well as the state government over price rise, unemployment and farm laws. Leading the protest, party’s acting chairperson Sameer Singh said unemployment and inflation were at their peak, but the government was least bothered to solve these issues. Another party leader, Kaukab Qadri, hit out at the NDA government for “ignoring the plights of farmers and youths”.

The Times of India

2021-10-01

Patna