Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma blamed Nitish for trying to split the party, asserting that it had fended off the threat.
Congress highcommand on Tuesday removed Ashok Choudhary from the post of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief with immediate effect. The party had earlier summoned him to Delhi after reports surfaced that he was out to split the party and extend support to the JD(U)-BJP combine led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
"Congress president Sonia Gandhi has relieved Ashok Choudhary from the post of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief with immediate effect," Janardan Dwivedi, AICC general secretary, said. The party's state vice-president Kaukab Quadri will take charge till a new state chief is announced.
"I have served the party with hard work and sincerity. This is the party's decision, so I welcome it," Choudhary told reporters after the announcement.
Choudhary had told central leaders that a 'false propaganda' was being against him. "Some AICC leaders are behind the crisis in the party in Bihar… They are fuelling rebellion against me...to replace me from PCC president's post with their favourite," he had said.
Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma blamed Nitish for trying to split the party, asserting that it had fended off the threat. "There is no threat. Yes, efforts have been made, which expose the unprincipled politics of the BJP and CM Nitish Kumar," he said.
The Congress has 27 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.
Earlier this month, while he did attend a meeting alongwith Congress legislative party leader Sadanand Singh conducted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he later didn't join a follow-up meeting called by vice-president Rahul Gandhi to stem the crisis.
Choudhary Ashok along with other Congress leaders like Madan Mohan Jha, Abdul Jalil Mastan and Awadesh Kumar Singh was a ministers a minister in Nitish Kumar government, till he dumped the grand alliance that had Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal as main partner, and the Congress has the third partner. Choudhary (49) had been asking the party to distance itself from the tainted Yadavs. But the Bihar Congress chief was berated for making the suggestion and then snubbed by keeping him out of Rahul Gandhi's interaction with the party's lawmakers.
Choudhary is understood to have mustered the support of some 18 Congress MLAs. Observers said the unhappiness within Congress ranks in Bihar had simmered even during the reign of the "secular grand alliance" but has now come to the fore after Nitish switched over.
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