With Dalit face as president, Congress hopes to turn new leaf in poll-bound Bihar

The Congress on Wednesday appointed party MLA Rajesh Kumar as the BPCC president. (Image: X/@INCIndia)

The Congress party on Wednesday appointed Rajesh Kumar as the president of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee, replacing Akhilesh Prasad Singh on the post. Last evening, Kumar paid a courtesy visit to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.

The appointment of the new Bihar Congress chief comes ahead of the Assembly polls scheduled to be held in the state in October-November this year. As Congress president, Kumar faces a daunting task to resurrect the party in a state where it has only played second fiddle to the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

In the Lok Sabha elections held last year, the Congress managed to win 3 of the 9 seats it contested out of the 40 parliamentary constituencies in the state. In the 2020 Assembly elections, the Congress managed to win only 19 of the 70 seats it contested in the 243-member state legislature. The tally was a drop of 8 seats from the 2015 polls.

However, with the appointment of Kumar as the president of its state unit, the Congress is hopeful of turning a new leaf and make gains in the state. Additionally, it hopes to mark a significant shift in its own standing in the alliance with the RJD.

Kumar comes from the Dalit community which constitutes around 20 percent of the state's population, according to the Bihar government's caste-based survey report released in October 2023. Seen as a close confidante of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the party hopes Kumar's elevation will allow the party to spearhead its politics around Dalits in the state.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal led by Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav primarily counts Yadavs (14.3%) and Muslims (17%) as per 011 Census) as its support base while the Dalits and Extremely Backward Classes are learnt to side with Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United), the BJP as well as smaller parties like the LJP (RV) and the HAM(S).

As president of the state unit going into elections, Rajesh Kumar will bear the responsibility of ensuring that the party manages to make deeper inroads in order to improve its vote share while also navigating a tricky alliance where it will seek to challenge the RJD's dominance in a state it was last in power on its own in 1989.