Cong to go it alone in Bihar in 2010

Congress will not align with Rashtriya Janata Dal, and will contest the 2010 Bihar assembly elections on its own, its national spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said today.

AICC president Sonia Gandhi has been informed of the party workers' decision to go it alone in the assembly polls, due in November next year, he told newsmen.

Ahmed claimed that Congress' vote percentage had increased though the party could win only two seats in the recently concluded by-elections to 18 assembly seats in the state, which was the basis of the party's decision.

Echoing prime minister Manmohan Singh that the Naxal menace as the greatest danger to the country, Ahmed, a former union minister of state for home, said altogther 165 districts across the country were affected and the Centre had initiated a number of measures to counter it.