Cong hunts for a silver lining in RJD debacle

At Congress headquarters here, there was no sign of a heartbreak at the loss in the Bihar Assembly elections. Senior leaders were more anxious about the cases listed in the Supreme Court. They were visibly relieved when informed that the case on the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly was not listed for the day.

Although they would not go on record, many Congress leaders believed that Bihar election results were a blessing in disguise for the party as also for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

"It goes without saying that the UPA government will now have a better manoeuvring space vis-à-vis its ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). But the Bihar Assembly results have greater implication for the Congress as a political entity in the state. We can now start afresh. As long as the Lalu raj continued, there was no hope of resurrecting the party," said a Congress general secretary.

He said the Congress had been supporting Lalu even as the RJD as well as other parties cut into its electoral base""backwards castes, Dalits, Muslims and even a section of upper castes. "Different parties divided the Congress vote bank among themselves, while we rode piggyback on the RJD. It is the time we do some self-introspection and think of re-alignments for the future," he said.

The Congress is, apparently, looking at a bigger picture"" the next parliamentary elections in 2009. Party leaders believed that the Congress had so far paid a huge price for supporting the RJD.

"The party lost its hold on the state. And because of its dependence on the RJD, it has been beholden to Lalu Prasad for its parliamentary majority, a situation it wants to change as soon as possible," he said.

"Before the February elections, Nitish Kumar was interested in forming an alliance with the Congress, if we agreed to drop the RJD. We had several rounds of talks, but the Congress central leadership refused to dump Lalu. Even this time around if we had gone along with Ramvilas Paswan, rather than Lalu, the result would have been different. But, the Congress leadership is somehow bewitched by Lalu," said another senior Congress leader.

In 2009, if the Congress plays its cards well, it will be able to build up the party structure and create a stronger counterpoise to the RJD. This might come in handy in 2009.

But short-term strategies for party-building have not appeared on the horizon yet.