Samata Party’s voice Shambhu will speak for Congress

A senior party leader said: ‘‘Some of the leaders wanting to leave are MPs and MLAs so they have to get the numbers first to defect. Not everyone is as unattached as Shrivastwa.’’

However, in Bihar which is heavily divided on caste lines, Kayasthas, the caste to which Shrivastwa belongs to, form less than 5 per cent of the population. The Samata still has a popular leader from the majority Kurmi community, Nitish Kumar, a reason why the exit of Shambhu may not be a dent electorally for the Samata.

At the same time, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today gave Shrivastwa the charge of Bihar though without giving him an organisational post. With the building discontent in the Samata in Bihar, an insider, Shrivastwa, helping the Congress could prove detrimental for the Samata.

For Shrivastwa, it could, however, be a tough task to work with Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, an ally of the Congress. On Laloo, he said, ‘‘Laloo lacks a development point of view. The only option is to build the Congress in the state.’’

Another issue on which Shrivastwa would face a similar dilemma is the Tehelka controversy, on which he had vociferously defended George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitely. The Congress has been boycotting the Defence Minister in Parliament on Tehelka and only last week sacked the party whip for defying the boycott in Lok Sabha.

On Tehelka, Shirvastwa said, ‘‘My present stand is the same as that of the Congress on Tehelka.’’ He also maintains that Fernandes and Nitish Kumar are not at loggerheads and are in fact ‘‘made for each other.’’

Shrivastwa had earlier resigned once following the Samata Party’s reluctance in demaning Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation for the communal riots but withdrew his resignation later.

‘‘I had thought that as the convenor of the NDA, George Fernandes would uphold the secular and Constitutional values of the country. But I have been deeply disappointed with Fernandes,’’ he said.

‘‘Many of us had believed that the BJP, being with the allies in the NDA, would become more sober, less communal and join the mainstream. But we are seeing that the BJP has not changed but the allies have,’’ he said.

He stressed that the disinvestment process has been ‘‘derailed.’’ ‘‘It is not without significance that the decision to disinvest profit-making national assets like HPCL and BPCL came on January 26,immediately after the Republic Day.’’