Rahul sounds poll bugle in Bihar

Riding on aam aadmi electoral plank, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi sounded the bugle for the Lok Sabha election campaign in Bihar on Wednesday, a day after addressing his first campaign meeting at Wardha and Nanded in Maharashtra.

After addressing a public gathering in Buxar from where KK Tiwari is the Congress candidate, Rahul Gandhi soon left for another public meeting in Aurangabad, where the party has fielded the sitting MP Nikhil Kumar, a former Delhi Police chief and son of former Bihar chief minister S N Sinha.

The general secretary will also kick off election campaign in Jharkhand today too where he is scheduled to visit Ramgarh and Lohardagga. Jharkhand has 14 Lok Sabha seats.

Later in the second week of April, Congress president Sonia Gandhi will also begin her campaign for the party.

After parting ways with RJD and LJP on seat-sharing disagreement for the Lok Sabha elections, Congress decided to fight elections single-handedly. It will serve two purposes of the Congress: first, if it bags more than three seats, which the RJD-LJP had left; and secondly, it will help to seek lost ground for the party in Bihar.

Out of the 40 seats in Bihar, the RJD and the LJP unilaterally announced a pre-poll tie-up according to which the RJD decided to contest 25 seats and the LJP 12 seats. Together they left the remaining three seats for the Congress which the latter rejected and decided to fight alone the 37 seats, leaving three for its allies. The RJD president is contesting on two and LJP chief on one. Later, RJD announced to field its candidates on the remaining three seats.

In the general election 2004, even the UPA was formed after the election, the UPA had bagged 29 seats in the state, while the JD (U)-BJP combine had 11. The RJD's tally was 22, while the LJP could only win four.

Bihar will go to election in four phases on April 16, 23, 30 and May 7, while elections in Jharkhand will hold on April 16 and 23.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi gave a befitting reply to BJP prime ministerial candidate L K Advani, who called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the weakest prime minister of India and said the government was administered from the 10 Janpath.

Launching scathing attack on NDA, Rahul Gandhi said whenever election time comes; the BJP and its allies do the politics of division and target a particular community for the sake of electoral gain. It did not run programmes to help the poor. No nation can progress without participation of all the people, including the poor strata.

The time has come to elect once again the government of the aam aadmi, a government which works and cares for the poors. The AICC general secretary said, “The UPA wants to take along all the people, both rich and poor, to build a better nation.”