Following Congress’ drubbing in the Bihar elections 2020, party general secretary Tariq Anwar spoke to The Daily Guardian, accepting the failings of Congress and admitting that the Mahagathbandhan would have been successful in the Bihar polls had the party performed just a bit better.
Q: What do you have to say about Congress’ disappointing performance?
A: We are definitely not happy with the performance. We are worried, and contemplating what happened to bring us down from 27 seats to 19 seats. When we fought the elections after winning 41 seats, we got 27, and now we’ve gotten 19. There have been some miscalculations and some errors, and we need to introspect and sit down to discuss all of it.
Q: Do you think the Grand Alliance couldn’t form the government in Bihar because of Congress’ bad performance?
A: Yes, definitely. I’ve accepted this fact and have said so as well. If our performance was even a little bit better, we’d have formed the government in Bihar. Citizens of Bihar really wanted change and there was a clamour for change, but we just couldn’t capitalise on it. These are the things that we’d sit down to discuss.
Q: Why did you say that AIMIM making inroads into Bihar is bad for the state?
A: Parties like these are a threat to secularism and the stronger AIMIM becomes in Bihar, the more it will aid the BJP and RSS. Purnia was a stronghold of Congress and the AIMIM winning 5 seats in that area certainly isn’t a good sign.
Q: You’ve said that with the BJP and NDA winning elections, it is Bihar which has lost the polls.
A: Yes, as I’ve said, the people of Bihar wanted change. We could gauge the public’s mood for change. Especially the way Tejashwi led from the front against the issue of unemployment and the youth in Bihar really backed him. Sadly, we couldn’t encash that sentiment and it is certainly very disappointing.
Q: About Nitish Kumar, you’ve said that ‘what is allotted cannot be blotted’.
A: I said so because generally the bigger party leads the alliance. But what we are seeing is that the reins remain with the BJP while Nitish is the one leading. Earlier, Nitish Kumar could work the way he wanted to but I don’t think that’ll be possible for him anymore. He’ll have to do what the BJP tells him to do.
Q: PM Modi attacked nepotism in politics in his victory speech.
A: He doesn’t have much to say anyway. So he’s attacking nepotism even though he’s been in power for over 6 years now and he really needs to take a closer look at his own allies because only then will he realise that all his allies and associates are also involved in nepotism. But he’ll never see any of it, he’ll only see it in Congress. He’s just phobic of Nehru and the Gandhi family.
Q: How will you keep your flock of 19 MLAs together and not let them get poached by the BJP?
A: When we had 27 seats, they had tried the same tactic. They succeeded to a certain extent with a few of our MLCs but the MLAs never wavered. We are sure our members will remain with us and work towards rebuilding this party. I can say this for sure.