RANCHI, Dec 9: With the mid-term Lok Sabha polls slated for February-March next year, politicians of all hues have become active already. And if there is any pattern discernible at this early stage, it is that the knives are out against the `national' party led by Sitaram Kesri.

In the forefront, not surprisingly, are Congressmen. On Friday evening Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav is said to have held a meeting at his Patna residence, where it was decided that he would resist the Congress move to form an electoral alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav. These Congress leaders, who claim to have the support of party MPs Jagannath Mishra and A S Ahulwalia among others, have floated a parallel body called the Congress Morcha. ``We can join hands with the Samata Party or the Samajwadi Party. But with the RJD as an ally we don't dare approach our voters who are dead against Laloo,'' Dularchand Yadav, a Morcha leader who is also Ram Lakhan's nephew, said.

This is not the only splinter group of the Congress coming into existence before the Lok Sabha polls. In a conclave held here at Dhurwa, the Jharkhand Khetihar Majdoor Congress (JKMC) was also set up. Headed by Congress MLAs Pradeep Balmuchu and Keshav Mahto Kamlesh, former vice-president of the Chotanagpur -- Santhal Pargana Regional Congress Committee (CSRCC) R P Raja, former CSRCC secretary (Legal) Anadi Brahma, former CSRCC member Sawna Lakra, and about 300 Congress workers, this new group bodes ill for the Congress in the Jharkhand region.

``We will contest on our own in both the Lok Sabha and the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council polls,'' said Raja, who is a well-known supporter of the Congress Rajya Sabha MP, Gyanranjan. Bickerings in the Jharkhand unit of the Congress are also likely to become more pronounced, with the Ranjan faction's JKMC appointing observers to select nominees for the forthcoming Lok Sabha and JAAC polls.

None of the 14 Lok Sabha and 162 JAAC constituencies in this region are considered a stronghold of the Congress, and till date not even the CSRCC committee has been constituted, thanks to intra-party squabbles.In addition the JMM, which in its executive committee meeting here yesterday evening formally decided to forge an electoral pact with the RJD, is well disposed towards Ranjan. ``We will have nothing to do with the Congress. In case the RJD-Congress alliance materialises, we will oppose the latter in every constituency in this region where the Congress puts up a candidate,'' said JMM vice-president Suraj Mandal .

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.