Patna, June 29: The Bihar Congress today got a shot in its arm with many leaders from Samata Party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) joining it. Those who joined the Congress included former Bihar law minister and Samata Party national committee member Deonath Prasad, Yuva Samata state vice president Arun Kumar Yadav, LJP's student wing president Pankaj Kumar and NCP's national council member Ashok Kumar Thakur.
State Congress president Ram Jatan Sinha welcomed Prasad and others at a function at the party's headquarters here.
Sinha claimed that many more leaders have evinced interest to join the Congress in the near future.
The Congress Bihar chief told reporters that the party was on its way to regain its traditional support among all the sections of people and asserted that the party would very soon become number one party in the state.
Prasad, who served as law minister in the Laloo Prasad Yadav's ministry in 1998-99 and later joined Samata Party, said that he was leaving Samata Party in protest against the party's national leaders failing to resist the NDA government's anti-farmer and anti-poor economic policies.
Yuva Samata vice president Arun Kumar Yadav, Majdoor Samata state general secretary Vijay Kumar Mitthu, LJP's student wing president Pankaj Kumar and NCP's national council member, who joined Congress with hundreds of their supporters, expressed confidence that the Congress would work for the farmers, Dalit and other weaker sections of the society.
Bureau Report