A day after the “stormy” State coordination committee meeting of the Congress in Patna, former Bihar Jail Minister Ashok Choudhary was appointed State Congress president on Sunday.
Elated over his appointment, Ashok Choudhary told mediapersons in Patna that his primary objective would be to strengthen the party so that it could defeat the communal forces in the 2014 lok Sabha elections. He said that he would also take the guidance of his senior colleagues in his endeavour to regain the lost ground of the party in the State.
Thanking Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi for giving him the responsibility, Choudhary said that the party had witnessed both good and bad phases, expressing his confidence that the good time would return to the party again.
Commenting on factionalism in the party, the newly appointed president said leaders with various lines of thinking work in any party and hence the differences of opinion.
It was not that my predecessors Mehboob Ali Kaiser, Anil Sharma or Ram Jatan Sinha did not work hard for reviving the party’s base but desirable success could not be achieved in the last Assembly election in 2010, he added.
“I will strengthen the party from the booth level to the the State in the next three months,” he added.
Former State Congress president Mehboob Ali Kaiser had tendered his resignation after the party’s dismal performance in the last Assembly election itself but the party’s high command did not accept his resignation.
The party is functioning in the State without any executive committee and a coordination committee was constituted to take care of the party’s affairs.
Now, Choudhary is faced with the daunting task of forming his new team, a work which does not seem simple in view of factionalism in the party.