RJD-Congress tiff accentuates

patna: the bitterness between the ruling rashtriya janata dal (rjd) and its alliance partner, congress, has reached a crescendo with bpcc chief and medical education minister shakeel ahmed firing yet another salvo against rjd national president laloo prasad yadav. ahmed has charged laloo of becoming a stumbling block in the way of congress which is presently consolidating its base among the minority communities.he alleged laloo is busy convincing the minorities that rjd is the only party which cares for them. according to bpcc sources, ahmed has written a letter to aicc president sonia gandhi on thursday, informing her how laloo sidelined the congress while formulating and implementing welfare schemes, particularly, for the minority communities of bihar. ahmed forwarded the copies of the letter to all members of the congress working committee (cwc) and aicc general secretaries, mahabir prasad and oscar fernandes. he said the cwc may not make any decision about the congress-rjd relation in bihar on the basis of his letter but it will help the high command aware of the latest situation. it can make them draw definite conclusions about the rjd's relation with congress here, ahmed said. shakeel had written a hard-hitting letter to the aicc chief earlier also. he is expected to visit delhi in near future to apprise the central leadership about the latest developments, the sadaquat ashram sources said. they added the bpcc chief has given only the outlines of the congress-rjd differences in his letter and he will inform sonia gandhi and other cwc members how rjd is spreading its grip among the minorities at the cost of congress. the letter has cited specific instances about how rabri government recently constituted five-member minority welfare committees in each district but no congressmen was included in the committees despite taking the congress into confidence for clearing the names for appointment. recently, a meeting to discuss the problems of madarsa teachers was convened at the chief minister's residence but only ministers, belonging to minority community of the rjd, were invited while congress ministers and senior leaders were ignored, the letter said. it stated that the congress thought that its support to rjd will contain the spread of communalism but it failed to yield any positive result. many senior congressmen of bihar had not appreciated the stand of party high command to support rjd even at that time but the party supported the rjd to maintain its secular credentials, it added. laloo wants support from us to save his wife's government at one hand but does not want the congress to spread its base among the minority community, the letter said and added that laloo also convinces the minority community that only the rjd and he can save them.