Red faces in Bihar Congress as leaders come to blows during meeting to review election drubbing

A video of Bihar Congress leaders throwing fists during an election review meeting in Madhubani earlier this week has prompted the party’s central leadership to seek a report, The Indian Express has learnt.

According to senior leaders, the incident took place in Madhubani, where around 500 leaders of the Congress’s Bihar unit — including Bihar party chief Rajesh Ram and former Congress legislature party leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan — met Tuesday to discuss the party’s poor showing in the November Assembly polls.

A video of the meeting shows Congress workers and supporters in a fisticuff, with a leader in the background asking them to stop. According to sources, the central Congress leadership has sought a report on the scuffle.

Former BPCC secretary and Madhubani leader Shashikant Jha Guddu, who attended the meeting, called it an “unfortunate” incident that began over a disagreement on ticket distribution.

“Supporters of former NSUI state president Rashid Faqri started shouting slogans against supporters of another Congress leader Nalini Ranjan Jha, who had contested unsuccessfully from Benipatti,” he said, adding: “It’s good that the problem was sorted out with intervention of our senior leaders, and the meeting resumed. It was followed by a foot march.”

Calls and texts to Faqri and Jha went unanswered.

Former Congress legislature party leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan called the incident “condemnable, objectionable and unfortunate”.

“In a democracy, everyone has the right to air his/her views. Our party colleagues should have expressed their reservations at the meeting. At a time when we need to fight the BJP’s might, we are fighting ourselves.”

He added that the Madhubani district unit has sent a report on the incident to the state unit.

“The PCC president will submit a report to central leadership, which must have been upset with the Madhubani incident. Such things weaken the party,” he said.

This comes less than two months after the Congress’s drubbing in the election to Bihar’s 243-member Assembly.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan, of which the Congress was a part, saw its tally fall from 110 seats to 35. The Congress’s seats dropped to six from 19, with both Bihar Congress chief Ram and former Congress legislature party leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan losing their seats.

The Bihar Congress had expelled seven leaders and issued notices to 36 others for anti-party activities during the last Assembly polls. The state unit has also met central leaders to discuss, among other issues, the election debacle.