Patna: The 35-year old RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, has seemingly a ‘burning desire’ to become chief minister this assembly election but it all depends whether he will be able to inspire confidence among those who are still wary of Yadav hegemony returning if his party forms government again.
Although Tejashwi had realised a long time back that he could not hope of his elevation to the post of chief minister until he broadened his party`s support base beyond its traditional Muslim-Yadav (MY) vote bank. Since Bihar`s politics revolves around three main political parties, namely BJP, JD (U) and RJD, any two of three major parties coming together will form the government in the state. With Bihar chief minister and JD (U) leader Nitish Kumar dumping him twice after running government for brief periods, Tejshawi had given his special focus on attracting other social groups to the RJD fold so that he could ultimately fulfill his ambition of becoming chief minister of the state.
Like in the past assembly election, NDA, particularly, BJP, has sought to impress people how they were “persecuted due to the Yadav dominance” during the Lalu-Rabri raj.
Lalu and MY factor
RJD chief Lalu Prasad, riding the Mandal wave, had emerged as a great hope for all OBCs, EBCs and Dalits, but his political strategy mainly focused on consolidating support of Yadavs and Muslims at the later stage, thus losing the support of a large section of the non-Yadav OBCs and other social groups. It ultimately paved the way for Nitish Kumar coming to power in 2005 and ruling the state for the next two decades, remarked political analyst Indrajit Singh.
RJD leader Chitranjan Gagan said that NDA was only trying to spread a false narrative as contrary to their claim, RJD was caring for all people, irrespective of their castes and communities. The young generation will not buy such an argument as they are looking towards Tejashwi Yadav with great hope. Tejashwi has proved how he worked for everybody when he was deputy chief minister for 17 months last time, he remarked.
Tejashwi and “A to Z” politics
With an objective to ensure that his party moved beyond its traditional MY social base, Tejashwi claims his party is pursuing “A to Z” politics as it gave good number of seats to Kushwahas (an OBC caste) in the last Lok Sabha election and also appointed an EBC leader Mangani Lal Mandal as state party president.
Tejashwi is repeatedly raising the issues such as unemployment, migration and development, gaining significant traction with the youth across the state.
RJD will also get sizable votes of other communities with the help of its other alliance partners like Congress, left parties particularly CPI (ML) and VIP, remarked a senior RJD leader. RJD can also hope to make inroads into its non-traditional social base by giving tickets from all other castes, he added.
