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Crisis brewing in Samata

By K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI JAN.1. A crisis of sorts is brewing in the Samata Party with a dominant section of the MPs from Bihar, upset over the manner in which the party's affairs are run, deciding to protest in a novel way — refusing to renew their membership.

With the party having already announced its schedule to elect a new set of office-bearers in the States and at the Central level, six of the 14 MPs who had raised the banner of revolt against the continuation of the present Bihar party chief, Raghunath Jha, have said that they want to keep away from the process. Some of these MPs had stayed away from the party's national executive at Rajkot during November last year.

The MPs, Prabhunath Singh, Manjay Lal, Arun Kumar, Renu Kumari, Rajiv Ranjan `Lallan' Singh and Bashisht Narain Singh, had written a letter last month to the party president, George Fernandes, asking him to remove Mr. Jha and threatened to resign from the party in case their demand was not met.

Though they have not so far carried out their threat, the present move of not renewing their membership in the party is aimed to create pressure on the central leadership to take a decision.

The last date for the renewal of membership, which was to end by December 15, has been extended by a month, the party spokesman, Shambhu Shrivastava, said today.

However, by targeting Mr. Jha, the six MPs considered close to the Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, have in a way challenged Mr. Fernandes himself.

Apparently, the real issue is not just Mr. Jha's continuation in office but since many of these MPs have a socialist background they are getting restive over the `pro-BJP' tilt in the party.

Sources said this section was agitated that hardly any debate was allowed even on issues of concern like Godhra and its aftermath, disinvestment and the latest affirmation of the BJP chief, M. Venkaiah Naidu, to replicate the "Gujarat experience" elsewhere in the country.

The Samata party has a strong presence in Bihar and one of the reasons for the tussle is control of the State unit.

The dissident group fears that continuation of Mr. Jha as the chief till elections could result in his "packing the party with supporters and effectively loosen their grip".

In September last when Mr. Fernandes took over the reins of the party from V.V. Krishna Rao, the move was said to control dissidence in the Bihar unit.

Mr. Rao, who assumed charge when the then party president, Jaya Jaitly, had resigned in the wake of Tehelka episode, steered the party during a turbulent phase — the post-Tehelka period and the resignation flip-flop of Mr. Fernandes.

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