Sunday, November 27 2005 10:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: It is the end of the road for the Congress-RJD alliance in the wake of the defeat of the Lalu Prasad-led party in Bihar with Congress leaders insisting that it is now free from the apron strings of the Railway Minister.

"Alliance is there when in power and in the opposition one is free to chart his own course", was the refrain of many a Congress leader, close on the heels of Sonia Gandhi saying in the big challenge ahead in Bihar lay 'many opportunities' for strengthening the organisation.

The argument of several party leaders was that the defeat of RJD-led alliance, of which Congress was also a part, was a blessing in disguise given the fact that the party had become almost irrelevant in the last 15 years in the key state of Hindi heartland which it had ruled for decades.

Another party leader said that Lalu Prasad had become a 'hate figure' in a vast section of population in Bihar and Congress' attempts to dissociate from his party in the February polls were half-hearted and only created confusion among the rank and file and also people.

The party spokesman had already made it known that the party high command would analyse the Bihar results and would corrective measures before the AICC Plenary being held in Hyderabad in late January.

Congress has become an 'also-ran' in Bihar as also Uttar Pradesh in the last over 15 years with the emergence of Mandal and Mandir issues which saw massive erosion of its support base in the two crucial states and the party cannot bank on the support of any single community in either of the states.

It drew strength earlier from Dalits, minorities, upper castes and most backward castes in the states.

The defeat in the assembly polls, Congress leaders argue, give it one more opportunity to start afresh with a clean slate.

Highly placed Congress sources said that there were moves before the February polls for tying up with the Janata Dal(U) and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP but they failed as the party leadership feared retaliation by Lalu Prasad at the Centre with its 24 MPs.

This was being thought of as Prasad had at one point said he was not ready to part with more than ten seats to Congress. The strength of the Bihar Assembly is 243.

On the other hand, the recent polls saw the leadership taking a complete U turn with the party trying to be in the good books of Prasad who was a mellowed lot compared to February and gave some 50-odd seats to the party, the lowest contested by the party so far.

This was because a section of the party expressed itself strongly against propping up Paswan to spite Prasad arguing that the party was creating a Frankenstein, which would boomerang on the Congress in the long run.