The Congress said on Thursday it was disappointed with its performance in Bihar Assembly elections and the party’s working committee would soon review it. The Congress managed to win only 19 of the 70 seats it had contested, down from its previous tally of 27 seats out of 41 it had fought in the 2015 assembly elections in the state.
The people of Bihar came “pretty close” to change the government, the Congress’ senior spokesperson P Chidambaram told reporters. Asked about the party’s performance in the Assembly polls, he said, “We accept the verdict. We are disappointed with our performance in Bihar. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will review it in due course and come up with an official statement of our position.” The former finance minister said one should remember that Bihar was the poorest state of India, even though Narendra Modi has been the prime minister since 2014 and Nitish Kumar the chief minister of the state since 2005.
“In the poorest state of India, as I agree in the alternative analysis, voted for no change in the government. Well, they came pretty close to change the government. I think, 10 seats either this way or that would have changed the government,” he said. The vote difference between the NDA and the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ was only 0.3 per cent, Chidambaram said.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the mandate in Bihar was not in favour of the chief minister. The difference in voting percentage was very low and the Congress should have done better, he said, adding the performance would be analysed and reviewed in the CWC meeting.
“But to say that the result has negated the issues raised by the Mahagathbandhan or that those did not have a resonance in Bihar, I don’t agree to that. The issues raised by us are there and they would remain,” Ramesh said.
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