New Delhi:
After its revival in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is hoping that Rahul Gandhi's "right medicine" will help resuscitate the party in poll-bound Bihar, where it has been out of power for the last two decades.
"We were ill there (Bihar). We got a good doctor, who gave us the right medicine. There is a change of mindset in Bihar after Rahul Gandhi's visit there. We will reach our destination under his leadership," Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said in New Delhi.
He was asked whether the party has any hope of revival in Bihar, where it currently has only 10 MLAs in the 234-member assembly. The party won two out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in general elections last year.
Khurshid, who had been to Bihar recently, said, "there is excitement among the party workers as the party has decided to fight on its own and there is a readiness for change among people."
Congress, which had parted ways with Lalu Prasad's RJD and Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, has decided to contest the assembly elections on its own.
Khurshid said the party workers are especially enthused as the Congress will fight on a large number of seats this time compared to earlier when it was contesting only a few seats under an alliance.
"Like Uttar Pradesh, where we had got 22 seats in the last Lok Sabha election, our performance will go up in Bihar. We will be benefitted from the people's yearning for a change there," Khurshid said.
The minister also expressed confidence that minorities will vote for Congress in large numbers in Bihar "as they have done in Uttar Pradesh owing to a number of steps taken by the central government for their uplift".