Cong netas under fire for no alliance in Raj polls

JAIPUR: Rajasthan Congress leaders came under fire at the CWC held in New Delhi on Thursday for their failure to forge an alliance with like-minded parties like CPM and Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) in the just concluded Assembly elections.

It is said that the overconfidence of the state leaders cost the party dearly in Rajasthan and adversely affected the camaraderie among the INDIA partners. Ashok Gehlot had indicated at one time that Congress may form an alliance with CPM and BAP, but that did not materialise.

It was said that the bone of contention was CPM wanting the Danta-Ramgarh seat for its state secretary Amra Ram, but Congress reserved it for Virendra Singh, son of former PCC president and Jat leader Narayan Singh.

On the other hand, state Congress leaders claimed that BAP was punching much above its weight and was exaggerating its influence in the Vagad-Mewar region which scuttled the chance of an alliance, said sources.

The party believes that it had lost many seats with a very low margin and it could have prevented the division of anti-BJP votes, had it come to some kind of understanding with these smaller players.

Besides the state leaders' calculation of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) of Hanuman Beniwal cutting the BJP votes also went awry. Some of Beniwal's statements and even by some Congress leaders accusing Gehlot of using Beniwal as a tool neutralised the impact of RLP against the BJP. People got the impression that the RLP was being propped up by the Congress to cut the BJP votes resulting in consolidation of BJP votes.

RLP supremo Beniwal just scraped through and with a very low margin while all his party candidates failed at the hustings.