Fodder scam tainted Senior Congress leader, Jagannath Mishra, yesterday floated a 'Congress Bachao' Manch to save the party from 'ruin and bring it out of the individual leader and vested interests.'
According to Mishra, the former Bihar Chief Minister, who is famous for launching Manchs (organisations) whenever he is in trouble, the new 'Manch' would work from the block to the state level and launch an intensive public campaign for the revival and rehabilitation of the party in Bihar.
It may be recalled that Mishra, now on bail for his alleged involvement in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam, had launched 'Jan Vikas Manch' and had authored a book 'Bihar ke pira se jutiye (Identify yourself with the agonies of Bihar)' to put pressure on the centre when he was sidelined by the late Rajiv Gandhi, in national as well as state politics. Today's conference unanimously decided to boycott the Calcutta AICC session commencing from August,1998.
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Much to the chagrin of Mishra, three top leaders of the party - the stormy petrel of West Bengal and MP, Mamta Banerjee; a popular leader from South Bihar and MP, Gyan Ranjan; and S S Ahuliwalia did not attend today's conference for reasons best known to them. The former Bihar Chief Minister was, in fact banking upon the 'charisma' of these three leaders to make his new Manch a parallel organisation to the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) and challenge the might of its president, Sarfaraz Ahmed, who adorned the 'Gaddi' of the BPCC courtesy, Mishra. That the much talked about conference ended in a whimper is evident from the fact that not a single legislator barring Nilambar Choudhry, MLC, participated in today's conference.
By all means the newly floated Congress Bachao Manch has become an organisation of rejected Congress workers who now have a platform to vent their grievances against the central leadership for their present status.Today's conference was also addressed by former MPs, legislators and ministers.
The conference unanimously adopted a resolution criticising the party's decision to abstain from voting thereby saving the Laloo Prasad Yadav government and the decision to vote in favour of the confidence motion party sought by Rabari Devi.
'The party committed hara-kiri by these two decisions as the party has now become irrelevant and has lost its identity.'
The conference noted with grief and regret that genuine party workers who had stood like a rock behind the leadership of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi during their hours of crisis had been sidelined. 'The genuine party workers are being sidelined under a scheme of the AICC in a bid to foist a group of psychophants and drum beaters as leaders in Bihar.'
Another scam tainted leader, Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, while addressing the conference said that there was no alternative to the Congress and stressed that with the decline of the Congress the nation would be divided and the genuine party workers would never allow this. Launching a tirade against the present AICC president, Sitaram Kesri, the former Fertilizer Minister said that 'its a travesty of justice that a leader whose name does not figure in the voters list has become the president of the party.'
He said that the party president was creating a situation so that the genuine party workers should leave the party. 'I maintain that Kesri would never succeed in his design.'