Why Congress crumbled in Bihar? Lok Sabha MP Tariq Anwar flags this controversial appointment

The Congress party won only six of the 61 seats it contested in the recent Bihar elections, marking yet another setback for the party, which was part of the Mahagathbandhan — or the INDIA bloc — alongside the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Left parties.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — comprising Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — swept the Bihar elections with 202 seats in the 243-member Assembly, virtually decimating the opposition, including the Congress. The BJP emerged as the single largest party with 89 seats, followed closely by the JD(U) with 85.

The Mahagathbandhan finished with 35 seats.

But what caused yet another election setback for the Congress? Many leaders have pointed to a range of factors. Rahul Gandhi described the Bihar Assembly election verdict as “surprising”, alleging that the contest “was not fair from the very beginning.”

But Lok Sabha MP from Katihar, Tariq Anwar, has singled out the appointment of Krishna Allavaru as the party’s Bihar in-charge, suggesting that this decision played a decisive role in the Congress’s poor performance in the state.

“This time I was afraid from the very beginning as somebody who does not possess any knowledge of Bihar, does not have any idea, never contested any election, was sent there. I felt that was a wrong decision in the very beginning. His style of working was not correct. When you start on the wrong foot, how do you expect the ending to be?” Anwar, one of the most experienced faces of the Congress in Bihar, told The Print in an interview about Allavaru's appointment as the Congress party's Bihar in-charge.

Worked in Shaadi.com before joining Congress

Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, Allavaru worked as a consultant with various private firms like KPMG and Shaadi.com, before joining the Congress in 2010. Allavaru is considered very close to Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi and was appointed the party’s Bihar in-charge in February, replacing Mohan Prakash.

“You need candidates who are popular in the constituency. Overall selection was flawed,” Anwar, serving his sixth term as a Lok Sabha MP, said in the interview.

Congress, like other states, was the dominant political force in Bihar for the first three decades after Independence and ruled the state continuously from 1947 to 1967. It returned to power in Bihar in the 1980s only to be dethroned by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Janata Dal in 1990.

Over time, the grand old party's organisational strength in Bihar eroded, particularly in contrast with strong regional players like the RJD, the JD(U), and now the BJP. The party won 19 seats in Bihar in the 2020 assembly polls, down from the 27 seats it won in 2015.

“Many seniors were not consulted. Whenever any office bearer, worker, or aspirant went to him (Allavaru), they never returned satisfied,” Anwar said.

The party's campaign in Bihar was scrutinised from the outset. Following his August yatra, Rahul Gandhi remained largely absent and returned to the campaign trail only on 29 October. Gandhi's absence had become a significant issue amid a crisis within the party's ranks, with many leaders alleging discrepancies in the distribution of tickets.

A group of disgruntled Congress leaders, including former MLAs, staged a protest over being denied tickets ahead of the November polls. They had demanded the replacement of Allavaru with a ‘political’ person. They accused Allavaru of being a “corporate agent” and “sleeper cell of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh– the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.