New Delhi: Former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler, who failed to get a Congress ticket for the recent Lok Sabha elections in the wake of the controversy over his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, was on Friday made party incharge of Bihar.
Tytler has replaced Iqbal Singh, who was made the Lt
Governor of Puducherry early this week, as the party braces
for Assembly elections in the state due next year after
virtually snapping its ties with the RJD.
The veteran of Delhi politics was given a Congress
ticket from the North East seat but after the incident of a
Sikh journalist hurling a shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram
on the anti-Sikh riots issue brought fresh focus on the cases
in which Tytler is an accused, he was dropped as the party
candidate along with Sajjan Kumar.
His appointment has come at a time when a sizeable
section of the state Congress is advocating that it should not
have any truck with Lalu Prasad`s RJD which has been an ally
of the party in the state for the last 11 years.
The refrain of this section is that for the Congress
to grow in Bihar, the RJD should be marginalised. This section
wants to go along with LJP led by Ram Vilas Paswan to get a
pie of the dalit votes.
Bihar is next on the radar of the party leadership
after Uttar Pradesh where the Congress won 21 of the 80
Lok Sabha seats, its best performance in 20 years.
In Bihar, the party managed to win only two seats
after deciding to contest alone in the polls following a
unilateral tie-up between RJD and LJP.
Tytler, an associate of Sanjay Gandhi in the 1970s,
has had a chequered political career. He had resigned as a
Union Minister in the first UPA government after the issue of
the riots cropped up. It again cost him his Lok Sabha
nomination in the last general elections.
"Consequent upon Iqbal Singh being made the Lt.
Governor of Puducherry, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has
appointed Jagdish Tytler as the party in-charge of Bihar,"
AICC media department chief Janrdan Dwivedi said.
Bureau Report
